


Hearth, Home and Heart Tree

by Charmtion



Series: The Wolf and His Ward [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Forbidden Love, House Stark, Iron Islands (Westeros), Ned Stark Lives, Power Couple, Secret Relationship, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-07-29 23:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 50,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16274765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmtion/pseuds/Charmtion
Summary: Ned lifts her hand to his lips: a lord’s chaste goodbye to his loyal ward, no more. But his eyes tell a different goodbye; the look he gives her is of flame and spice, a look that speaks of the shadows and soft heat of the night before, a look that says he will not forget her surrender, her sound, her scent.Aforbidden loveborne of saltspray and storm and sealed by silver and song. Could one person alter the chain of events in the red viper’s pit of King’s Landing? Could a love gloved in secrets and shadows be the salvation of many? Anything is possible in matters of the heart, where honour holds no power…





	1. Promises

She feels his eyes on her as the king and court sit down to dine. They find her face in the crowd and burn her with desire. She keeps her own gaze downturned, goes about the great hall like a ghost, mead jug in one hand, the other tucked into her full skirts to hide its trembling. Men gawp and grab at her, hot hands pluck at her gown and whisper the length of her dark hair. She glides past them with a pretty smile on her face, bending to fill tankards, watching the mead, dark and thick as treacle, cloud men into their cups. Only when she is in the shadows thrown by the torches does she look up toward the trestle table with its lords and ladies, kings and queens. She studies their faces, each and every: the golden-haired twins of queen and knight, the black-bearded red-faced mammoth of a king, three children gold of hair, plump-handed and decked in roaring red-and-gold finery. _What a sad little family_ , she thinks, _choked by gold and jewels and cold formality_. She watches them all, stag and lion as different as iron and gold, watches as they sit and smile and ignore each other totally. Her eyes turn to the wolves then and meet his hungry eyes.

He sits beside the king, his dark beard hiding down-turned lips, his soft grey eyes alive as rain in the torchlight, flickering on hers in the shadows. He wears soft grey embroidered with the direwolf of his house – but she knows the hard body beneath, all its scars and burns, its textures and twists, its endless hunt for pleasure and soft heat. Her hands flex on the handle of the mead jug; she knows the feel of his shoulders, plump with muscle, as they nudge into her palms, the smoothness of his beard against her throat, the bite of his mouth that follows. She feels the heat bloom in her cheeks, the ache for him start between her legs. Her hand traces down her throat, pushes the hair back behind her ear. She watches his eyes flicker, watches as his hand twitches on the arm of his chair, his fingers copying her own. A sigh rattles through her lips.

His lady wife sits beside him at the high table, her red-gold hair aflame in the torchlight. She wears blue velvet, leaping fish sewn in silver up and down the sleeves, her fingers threaded with rings of gold and silver and gemstones. Her face looks younger by candlelight, here and there a smile lifts her cheeks, and her eyes, those luminous blue Tully eyes, flicker back and forth as restless as the trout flying the velvet of her arms. Three of the children are still sat up at the table, all red-haired and blue-eyed, in the grey and white of House Stark, wolfhead pendants and pins.

 _What a sad little tableau_ , she thinks, _lion and wolf drinking from the same grey stream with wary eyes and quick claws_. She wonders, not for the first time, which beast will strike first. Her mead jug is empty, her head is full. She steps out of the shadows thrown by the torches and makes her way quietly across the great hall, threading benches and belches and brazen boys whistling her, and slips through the side door. Snow falls soft and quick as ash, already the ground is carpeted with it, and soon her dark hair is flecked white and grey and silver. She walks without hurry past the little sept built of grey stone, ivy-covered and silent in the moonlight. Nobody visits it save for Lady Catelyn and her small group of southron servants. She hums as she walks, a slow sad sweet little tune, and soon she is past the Great Keep, crossing the silent courtyard, slipping between the rumble of the armoury and barracks into the quiet of the godswood.

The weirwood is silver-white in the darkness, its branches skeletal fingers against the black sky, red-gold leaves glittering where they float listlessly atop the smooth black glass of the pool.

“ _The priest he says we’re wicked_ ,” she sings, her voice rich and dark as smoke scenting the sky, “ _but to worship the other’s bird. Ah but we respect the old ways and we disregard his word_.” Her eyes upturned to the black stars, she spins slowly, feels the rush of the gods through her skin, and the warmth of another as she steps back into hard flesh and soft wool. She does not look over her shoulder; arms find their way around her waist, crossing over her belly and flattening hard hands to her hips. Smooth beard glances the skin of her throat, a kiss soon follows.

“I knew I would find you here,” the voice is dark and deep, a slow rumble from his chest that echoes into her back. “Singing to the old gods, spinning in their grove.”

Her hands have lowered to cover his own; their fingers thread together. They stand and sway in the moonlight, red-gold leaves rustling at their feet, the wind lifting through their hair like the breath of the gods. “You came for me,” she murmurs, her voice as lilting as her song. “What did the king and his court say to that?” She feels his smile against her neck.

“The king is in his cups,” he says softly. “Drooping into his beard, saying things he does not mean. The queen and her cubs are returned to their cage.” She turns her face very slightly then, and he catches the glimmer of her eyes in the moonlight.

“And your lady wife?” she whispers, her lashes sweeping down to hide the sadness in her gaze. “Will she not wonder where her handmaid is to unpin her hair and unlace her gown?” Her heart clouds with hot shame and guilt as she speaks. Her fingers flex in his and he feels her tense against him. “What I have done – what I continue to _do_ – it makes honour a stone that sinks fast in the salt sea.”

“You speak as if you are alone in all of this,” he says, his voice warm and soft. He turns her in his arms now, one hand at her waist, the other lifting her chin till she meets his gaze with her own. “We are together in this, my love.” His forehead lowers till it rests upon hers, his dark hair falls and bleeds into hers, a glossy black wave in the silver light. “We are as one in this. Always.”

She looks up into his eyes, her gaze soft and round and full with love. Her small hand lifts to cup his skull, her thumb grazing the shell of his ear. “Do you promise, Ned?” she asks, rising on her tiptoes, her arms wrapping tight around his neck, her lips seeking his. “Do you promise?”

He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them they are damp and desperate. “I promise, Nell,” he whispers, kissing her as deft and soft as the snow falling around them. “I promise.”


	2. A Gift of Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

Ned goes to his bed with the shape of her still warm in his hands. He flexes his fingers as he steps quietly from solar to bedchamber, the doors sliding shut without creak or complaint. He raises his hand to his face, inhales deep the smell of her hair and skin still hot and heavy on his fingers: that heady perfume of scented oil, flowers and sweetness that is Nell’s and Nell’s alone. He sheds his cloak, plunges his hands into the basin of water before the window, washes the smell of her from his skin. He stands a moment before the window, looking out through the snow-swept glass to the shadows of Winterfell, the crumbling towers, the glow of hearths in the town beyond the walls. His heart is heavy, both for love of his home and for the pain at leaving their haven in the godswood once more.

“My lord, where have you been?” comes a murmur from the bed behind him. He turns from the window. His lady wife looks up at him from beneath the furs and sheets of the great bed, her hair as red and rich as fire. “Some problem with the king?”

He smiles at her, soft and sad. “Something like that.” He turns back to the window. “Go back to sleep, Cat. All is well now.” Soon he hears the soft breathing of sleep resume. He glances back at her, this woman that has borne him children, given him counsel, kept his hearth and home. A good woman, a true wife – but not without her cruelties. He thinks of Jon Snow then, his black-haired boy, and his heart hurts. Black rose petals swirl before his eyes, the air becomes heavy with the scent of blood. _Promise me, Ned_.

Suddenly the chamber is suffocating. He slips out as quietly as he stole in, leaving his cloak and boots behind, his shoulders dappled by the light of the moon and the torches as he creeps on silent stinging feet up the spiral staircase just outside the door to the solar. He treads lithe as a wolf along the narrow corridor of the top tower, twists a corner and finds the door he seeks. He steps into the room, bolts the door quietly behind him. It is a little room overlooking the ivy-covered sept below. A fire burns to embers in the hearth, limning the red hangings of the bed in soft orange light. Her grey gown is laid across the ironwood chest at the foot of the bed, the snow on her boots melting to black pools on the bearskin before the fire. He parts the curtains of her bed, his breath catching in his throat.

She is naked save for a skein of linen rumpled across her belly. Her hair is black as night against her pillow, her hand bent up by her face and half-lost in the silky tresses, her long lashes swept down onto her cheeks, her full lips parted slightly with the soft breath of sleep. A small silver wolf’s head nestles between her breasts, suspended from a thin silver chain about her neck. He reaches out and turns it gently with his fingers. There, in thin faded lines, are two letters entwined. To the eyes of the innocent, they are for the initials of her name. But to his eyes they are what they mean to be: Ned and Nell. Faded and hard to read, for sure, but kept close to her heart.

He closes his eyes, thinks back to the day he looped the chain about her neck, the wolf’s head then unmarked. It was a day that smelt of salt and seaspray: the day he led her from her home of black rock, seaweed and storm. How was he to know that the storm would follow them home from the iron isles and take root alongside the weirwood at Winterfell? _I should have known_ , he thinks sadly, _that day I marked her as a wolf with my gift of silver, I should have known then that things would never be the same_. He sits down on the edge of her bed now, weighed down by grief and fate and a thousand other things.

“A restless wolf has come for me,” she murmurs from the featherbed. “Should I call the guards or chance to kill the beast myself?” Even with a voice made rough from sleep, he hears her smile. Her hand reaches up to grip his shoulder, pulling him gently back to sit beside her. “Ned?” His shoulders shake as silent sobs rattle his ribs and burst his heart. He leans back against the hardwood headboard. “What is wrong, my love?”

He rubs a hand over his brow and looks up at her, his forehead furrowed, his eyes damp grey pools. He looks at her hands and hips and eyes and his shoulders shake.

“I don’t know, Nellie,” he murmurs, his voice breaking. “I don’t – ”

In an instant she is there, shifting the linen from her body to sit astride him, leaning him back against the hardwood and the wall, her little hands framing his wind-burned face. She lifts his cheeks so he is looking up at her and her lips fall into a gentle smile. She rests her forehead against his, her thumbs stroking his weather-beaten cheeks.

“It doesn’t matter, sweet Ned,” she whispers in that velvet voice she uses just for him. “It doesn’t matter.”

He kisses her then, his mouth opening hers and tasting it. His hands pass over the knots of bone at her back. His left hand finds its way along her shoulder, up the line of her throat, before it traces her collarbone and lands in the dip between her breasts. He strokes the silver pendant he gave her and presses his hand atop it, pushing it against the beat of her blood. They break from their kiss and watch his hand intently.

“You are my heart,” he says, his fingers whispering across her chest now. “You’re my bones and blood and breath.” His other hand grazes down her spine, to the swell of her hips; she doesn’t move. “I can’t abide the thought of hurting you, Nell.”

Her hands rise up now and pull the laces at his throat. Silently she fumbles with his doublet, his jerkin and shirt until his shoulders and chest are free and firm and warm beneath her hands. She listens to his soft intake of breath as she dips a kiss to his throat and trails her fingers across the hard plain of his belly.

“Flesh of my flesh,” she whispers, her lips moving up to his ear. “Blood of my blood.” She gasps and shudders and presses up against him as his thumb begins to circle her nipple. His other hand moves between her legs. She sighs as he finds the glow of warmth he craves and teases her. Her arms wind around his neck now, her whole body rising up in response to his touch. “Bone of my bone.”

The words are a familiar chant, a soothing song. He turns her beneath his body and buries his face in the curve of her neck. He murmurs soft words against her skin, passing his hands now over the curves of her hips, running his fingers across the tight skin of her belly. Her fingers stroke his dark hair, then sweep down to cup his chin, her eyes hot on his. She sees that they are dark with half a hundred things, guilt and confusion and bewilderment – but love shines in the grey depths, too, love and desire and a thousand other brighter things. And she smiles down at him, her teeth pressing into her lower lip, her thumb stroking the soft beard covering his chin.

“Kiss me,” she says.

He moves down her body and bends his head to his task and she holds it there at her cunt, her fingers looped tight into his hair, and she breathes a moan. His tongue is hot, sharp and searching, touching and goading her like a lightning bolt. She feels the storm start in her belly and spread like half a hundred red-hot arrows to her lungs; her hips and head fill till she cannot take it. She rips herself back from his mouth and pushes him, breathless and panting, back onto the bed. He grabs at her hips and throws her onto her back, moving up like a snake to lie his belly flat to hers. She is dancing beneath him, her hips darting up to press against him, her hands lifting to pull his face down to her breasts. He follows her fingers, opens his mouth on her nipple and warms it with his tongue. She is panting hard now, begging for him to enter her, begging for it to be done and her to be full. He spreads her legs with his knee and enters her hard, his breath coming in a groan as he feels her heat choking his cock. She is like liquid beneath him; twisting, turning, bucking, writhing – ready to drift as smoke to the sky. Her eyes narrow, blue-black and clear, bursting like purple flowers in the dark, and she catches his lips with hers, pulls his tongue into her mouth and bites his lip.

“Ned,” she moans. “Ned?”

“Nell?” he whispers.

“You’re mine,” she says, her eyes opening full and round onto his. “And I am yours.” She comes with a harrowing moan as if her soul is being ripped from her chest. He feels her pulsing around his cock, watches her come apart beneath him, and gives a groan. “Whatever secrets you keep, whatever decision you fear to make, know that I am yours, my love.” She holds his face in her hands, her brow furrowed and flickering. “Always.”

He kisses the panic away from her face. “You are hearth and home and heart tree.” He shudders at his own finish, his quiet groan rattling through his teeth and into her open mouth. “Always.”


	3. Hand and Home

She dreams of heavy water and cracked stone, of crumbling walls, dipping bridges, of thin soil and scarce trees. She sees faces, hard and stony as the land they call home, eyes the blue-grey of water, the green-black of kelp. Driftwood crowns bob the currents that snatch at her feet, the white-tipped waves beckon, the Drowned God calls – a voice as low and deep and crushing as the sea. She steps toward it, feels the cold water slice around her legs, sweep at her hips, drag her down, down, _down_ …  
  
Nell wakes with a start, her hands clutching at the furs and linen, her feet kicking out at the red hangings swirling toward her. She wrenches herself up, steps down from the hardwood bed, pushing the curtains red as blood away. She is in her little room at the top of the Great Keep. Cold air blows in from the window overlooking the ivy-covered sept. _Ned_ , she remembers, _Ned was here_. She sits down on the edge of the bed and circles the smooth silver wolf’s head at her throat. _An ache between my legs and an open window to cool hot northern blood – the only signs he was ever here at all_ … Snow has swept in with the night’s chill; the window is crusted with ice, the candles guttered out. It is sometime before dawn, the world a dim white light without as smoke rises slowly from the kitchens, as braziers are relit in the courtyard and walkways and everywhere the sleeping grey giant of Winterfell wakes. She latches the window shut, stands before her ironwood chest and laces her shift and gown and cloak, tucking the necklace beneath.  
  
Her boots rasp gently across the flagstones as she descends the winding staircase swiftly, following the galley and crossing the solar. She pauses before the doors to the lord’s bedchamber and gives a soft knock. A voice rises from within and she slips inside.  
  
Catelyn Stark is in a bronze tub before the fire, her rich red hair pinned atop her head, a few strands of grey peppering her brow. She is lying back, staring straight ahead with cool eyes, her pale skin flecked by the shadows of the flames. A serving girl bobs a curtsey as Nell enters the room and leaves hurriedly.  
  
“My lady,” says Nell by way of greeting. “You are risen early.”  
  
“Sour news in the night,” says Catelyn sullenly. “It oft spoils sleep.”  
  
Nell feels her heart quicken but fights to keep her breathing even. She moves quietly about the bedchamber, ties back the curtains of the bed; Catelyn’s side is rumpled and thrown back, her lord husband’s smooth and unslept in. She closes her eyes briefly, shifts her hips beneath her skirts to dull the ache of him between her legs. “You looked a queen of old yesterday eve, my lady.” Nell’s voice is bright and cheerful. “Will it be blue velvet again this morrow?” She smooths her hands over the many gowns and kirtles and bodices heaped in Catelyn’s clothes chests.  
  
“Grey,” comes the toneless reply from the tub. “Grey wool and a direwolf brooch. I must at least appear united with my marital house.”  
  
“My lady?”  
  
“Sour news in the night, I told you,” says Catelyn, rising with a splash from the tepid bathwater. She stands and shivers in the warm room until Nell wraps a robe about her shoulders. “King Robert has asked Ned to be his Hand.” She sits on a chair before her vanity and does not notice Nell’s hand shake as it unpins her hair. “Ned is refusing – he cannot see the honour it would bring to our house, the opportunities for our daughters, the patronages for our sons.” Catelyn glares at her own reflection. “He has never been able to see beyond the ice and snow of his northern blood.”  
  
“This is his home,” Nell says gently, combing through the tresses red as flame. “Would it not pain him to leave it?”  
  
Catelyn’s eyes flash quick as fish to meet Nell’s own in the looking glass. They are cold and blue and lovely all at once. “I had to leave my home,” she murmurs, her voice softer than her stare. “I had to leave the lush green riverlands and make my life in the north. I did it for my family, for my house, for my honour.” She runs a finger over the glass bottles and pots arranged on the table before her. “It pained me to leave it, Nell. But I left it. I had to. When fate offers you a hand you take it and don’t look back.”  
  
Nell bites her lip and nods, dressing Catelyn’s hair smooth down her back and lacing her without another word into a gown of grey wool patterned with white satin on the skirts. A running direwolf snarls at her shoulder, white moonstone set in silver. Nell steps back from fastening the brooch and her eyes meet with her lady’s. “You said Lord Stark is refusing, not that he has refused,” murmurs Nell. “That means he may yet change his mind.”  
  
Catelyn takes Nell’s cold hand in her own, squeezes it, her eyes blooming brighter in the soft dawn light. “I am counting on it, Nell.” She looks out of the window, to the towers and turrets of Winterfell beyond. “We are all counting on it.”

ლ

Ned is in the courtyard, the king beside him. They watch as stag and wolf spar against each other; Robb parrying, Prince Joffrey slashing and cutting at the air between them. Ser Rodrik Cassel stands with a frown as heavy as his white beard, beside him Bran and Rickon and Jon Snow wait with wooden practice swords and wide eyes. The king’s other son, plump sweet-faced Tommen, hides behind his father. The girls, both red and gold of hair, sit with the queen in the great hall, sharing lemon cakes and pleasantries. Catelyn walks with a high head and stiff mouth across the courtyard, fighting to ignore the swordplay ringing behind her, and makes for the archway leading to the sept and great hall beyond. She sets a fast pace; Ned watches as Nell rushes behind her sweeping skirts.

“Who is she?” asks Robert, his eyes intent on Nell’s dark head.

“Elenore Northwood,” replies Ned, his tone careful. “My ward.”

“Your ward from where?” Robert’s eyes are warming up despite the chill wind, appraising the slim body wrapped in a winter cloak.

“The Iron Islands.” Ned’s voice is cool and crisp. “I took her along with Theon Greyjoy at the request of his mother. I suppose she thought the lass would provide some memory of the salt of his home.”

“I can think of some sort of _salt_ she could prise from _my_ home,” says Robert, his voice thick with laughter, his eyes burning bright. “Elenore Northwood,” he calls out as she ducks just beneath the archway. “Come meet your king.”

Ned breathes quiet fury as she turns to her king’s summons, her steps deft and sure in the snowy yard, her eyes downcast. She stops a few feet before the king and bobs a curtsey, deep and low, holding her balance like a dancer. “Your warder has taught you good manners, Elenore of the ironlands, even if he did keep you hidden away at the feast yester-eve,” chuckles Robert. “Tell me, sweetling, how would you like to see King’s Landing?”

At this, her eyes raise up, the stormy blue-grey of the salt sea. “I like it here well enough,” is her reply, her voice cautious and polite. “It has been my home for nine years, Your Grace. Lord and Lady Stark have treated me well and good.” Her eyes fall to the snow underfoot.

“Nine years, hmm?” says Robert. “You do not miss the salt winds of home?”

“I was five-and-ten when I was taken from the ironlands,” she says softly. “I dream of them often, but salt winds do not trouble me here. I miss them no more than Balon Greyjoy’s cruelties and caresses.” She dips a curtsey again and leaves the king and her lord, disappearing beneath the archway.

“Aha!” exclaims the king, turning those bright eyes to Ned, his face split by a white grin. “Is that the real reason the little lamb was herded home to Winterfell?” He watches with amusement as Ned grinds his teeth. “Was it the tears or the teats that urged you to take pity on her, Ned?” He throws back his head and roars with laughter, clapping Ned on the shoulder. “I jest, old friend. You did a noble thing saving her from being a bedwarmer to that flinty old worm Greyjoy.” He tugs at his beard. “You could do an even nobler thing and sweep her away from this damned icicle of a place – bring her south with your daughters to King’s Landing.” His eyes grow dreamlike now and he grins. “I’d wager she could wrap the red city around her little finger in an instant. The eyes on her, the _arse_ – ” He catches the ice in Ned’s glare and holds up his hands, chuckling. “Apologies, my friend. I meant no offence.” But his eyes are sparkling. “Yet she is such a pretty little thing – and your girls _will_ need a handmaid with them when you come south.”

Ned smiles grimly. _A Hand I may yet become_ , he thinks, _but the handmaid will stay home_. “She is wolf and iron, Your Grace,” he says. “But even she would balk at the claws and antlers of your royal court.” He meets the king’s gaze. “And I have yet to decide – ”

Robert wags his finger at Ned’s protest. “I have given you ample time to decide as you _demanded_ , Eddard Stark,” he says. “I’ll have your answer on the morrow – and it’ll be yes. Yes to the Hand’s hallowed pin and mayhap yes to bringing your ward south with us. She would do well there, I think – in lighter clothes.” He chuckles, a fat happy sound turning to smoke on the cold air. “Silk and lace and linen, she will look a queen…”

Ned looks away from the cold light of lust tarrying in his king’s eyes and feels hate ripping at his belly. But he stays silent, smiling his grim little smile. _A Hand I may yet become_ , the words cloud his head again, _but my handmaid will stay home_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB** : to save plot repetition and recycling of book dialogue, Bran's fall takes place in the grey space between this chapter and the next.


	4. Three Ravens

“Will you sing me a song, Elenore Northwood?” asks Ned. She turns her face to look at him. He is sat in the crooked roots of the heart tree of the godswood, his greatsword Ice rested on his knee. She listens to the rhythmical rasp of whetstone on blade. “A song of the north.” His voice is gentle, but insistent. “A song of home.”

She hums beneath her breath and trails her hand across the still surface of the black pool at their feet. Red-gold leaves float across the glossy water, trails of fire leaving smooth ripples in their wake. “I have no harp nor lyre,” she murmurs, watching the eddies in the water. “It will a poor song make.” She lifts her eyes then and sees his still intent on his blade, the steady rush of sound as he sharpens it.

“A song,” he says softly. “Please, Nell.”

She sighs and sits up straighter and then her voice lifts from her throat, as gentle and lilting as the wind of the gods through their grove.

“ _There were three ravens sat on a tree, down a down, hey down, hey down._

_They were as black as black might be._

_With a down._

_The one of them said to his mate, Where shall we our breakfast take?_

_With a down, derrie, derrie, derrie, down, down_.”

The rasp of whetstone on blade lessens and then stops. Ned closes his eyes and leans his head back to the white bark of the weirwood tree.

“ _Oh, down in yonder green field,_

_Down a down, hey down, hey down._

_There lies a Knight slain under his shield,_

_With a down._

_His hounds they lie down at his feet,_

_So well they do their Master keep,_

_With a down, derrie, derrie, derrie, down, down_.”

His eyes open to fall full and round on her now. Her own eyes are closed, the lashes swept down on her cheeks. She is a sight not of this world, he is sure of it, sat there in her gown of soft grey wool, the skirts spilling out and stained red-gold by falling leaves, her black hair brushed back in a long plait trailing her hips, showing the smooth curve of her white throat, her lips soft in song, her hands tracing patterns in the air.

“ _His hawks they fly so eagerly,_

_Down a down, hey down, hey down._

_There is no fowl dare nie him come,_

_With a down._

_Oh, down there comes a fallow Doe,_

_As great with young as she might go,_

_With a down, derrie, derrie, derrie, down, down_.”

The thread of sorrow in her voice pulls tight around his heart, crushing his chest and making his breath come short and sharp. The words float free from her soft lips, mixing with the red-gold leaves, drifting across the still black pool, landing, soaking, falling, drowning.

“ _She lifted up his wounded head,_

_Down a down, hey down, hey down._

_And kissed the wounds that were so red,_

_With a down._

_She got him up upon her back,_

_Carried him to earthen lake,_

_With a down, derrie, derrie, derrie, down, down_.”

Her brow is furrowed as she sings now, her eyes closed tighter, her hands twisting in the quiet air of the godswood. He is tense against the heart tree, torn between the beauty of her voice and the pain writ plain on her face.

“ _She buried him before the prime,_

_Down a down, hey down, hey down._

_And was dead herself ere even-song time,_

_With a down._

_Gods send to every gentleman,_

_Such hawks, such hounds, and such a Leman._

_With a down, derrie, derrie, derrie, down, down_.”

She opens her eyes, the grey-blue of stormy seas, and smiles at him, a sorrowful smile that speaks of grief and pain and love and loss. A gust of wind rustles the leaves overhead; she shudders as it passes through her, as her cloak lifts and stirs amidst red-gold drifts and rippling pool. “There is your song, my lord,” she murmurs, her voice a sigh as soft and sad as the wind. “A song of the north, a song of home.”

“Come here,” he says, and he sets Ice aside and opens his arms to her. She shuffles through the leaf litter and curls into his lap, her head on his chest, the fur-trim of his cloak whispering against her cheek. “I have good hawks,” he remarks, his tone light. “I have good hounds, too. But a good leman?” He lifts her face gently with his hand on her neck and she looks up into his grey eyes and opens her mouth to his kiss. “I have the greatest love a man could ask for. You are given by the gods, Nellie Northwood.”

“What a lucky man you are, Eddard Stark,” she whispers, drawing back from his kiss with a smile. “That such a holy gift landed in your lap all those years ago.” She pushes the dark hair back from his brow, bites her lip to fight a wider smile. “Tell me, my lord, was your gift wrapped in seaweed and black kelp?”

He laughs at that and draws her closer. “Something like that,” he murmurs, love and laughter thickening his throat. In his mind he sees her the day he found her, her hair a tangle of salt and seaspray, her eyes blue-black and grey-green all at once, a bruise purpling her cheek. _Naked as your nameday_ , he thinks, _that’s how I found you, your face and thighs a map of Balon Greyjoy’s handprints and hurts_. But he doesn’t say it; he kisses her brow and listens to her breathing.

“Have you made your choice?” she asks suddenly, her voice tentative and placid. He remains silent, his breath soft on her forehead. “Between gold hand and the godswood of home – have you made your choice?” Still he is quiet. “I saw trouble in your eyes last night; I see everything in your eyes when you are inside me, Ned.” She lifts her head from his shoulder and tilts her face to look up at him. His eyes are on his boots, half-buried beneath leaf mould, his hand motionless in her hair. She strokes the soft beard, smoothing her thumb over the tight skin beneath his eyes. “It is hard to hide anything when your soul is laid bare, my lord. So, tell me, have you made your choice?”

“What choice is there to make?” says Ned finally, his tone terse and tempered with ice. “When fate offers you a hand you take it and don’t look back, is that not so?” His eyes meet with hers then, and they are hard and grey as storm clouds. She frowns at his words and sees Catelyn Stark flicker like smoke before her eyes. “I’ve half a hundred bees pouring honeyed words in my ear. Everyone sees fit to give me counsel, from king to cookboy. Some wonder at why I am not halfway to King’s Landing already.” His hand clenches into a fist, his jaw sets angry and hard. “They look at my broken boy and see only a second-born son. But he is a Stark of Winterfell, no matter if he is bruised or bloodied.” He sighs raggedly. “And yet… and yet…” his words fall harsh and quick, slicing the air between them. “Darker things move in the shadows.” His lips firm then, set grim and cold in his long face. “Faceless terrors that make your three ravens look bright as day… can I truly set them aside and stow away duty, honour, oath to sit and wait in Winterfell?”

His arm has long since slipped from her shoulders; yet when she rises to her feet he looks up at her as if in a dream, his hand clutching air in place of her tresses. “Gold hand or godswood,” she murmurs, her voice cool and calm. “Broken boy or beasts in the shadows.” Her eyes dip and rise as he lifts himself to stand before her. “I am no king or cookboy, Eddard Stark. I can see you need no counsel. Your mind is set.” She steps back from him, rustling red-gold leaves in her wake. He looks at her, his eyes still dreamlike, and he reaches out a hand to her; she does not take it. “Will a brooch of gold protect you from the steel and shadows of the south, my lord?” Her voice is a whisper. “Will duty, honour and oath save you from faceless wraiths and terrors in the darkness?” She lifts her hand quick as a fallen leaf to lay her palm on his cheek. He closes his eyes and breathes hard through his nose. “You had better hope your hounds and hawks follow you south and guard you well, my love.” Her hand drifts from his face. “Perhaps you will find yourself another leman to soothe your hurts and heal your heart, forged of scarlet glass instead of salt winds and seaspray.”

His eyes open at that, her name springs from his mouth in a shout – but she is gone, red-gold leaves fluttering in her wake, trails of fire leaving smooth ripples on the glossy black pool of the godswood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. **Leman** : a lover or sweetheart.  
> 2\. _The Three Ravens_ is a 17th-century English folk ballad telling the tale of three ravens denied their desired meal: a newly slain knight protected by his hawks and hounds and buried by his pregnant mistress. Nell's singing of it would be similar in style and tone to Isla Cameron's rendition on her 1964 album _Northumbrian Minstrelsy_.


	5. Shells and Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

It is past midnight when Nell returns to her room. The night is cold and clear, the sky bright with a thousand stars, the moon luminous as it crests above the towers of the castle. She shuts the door softly behind her, sets the fire to roaring in the hearth and strips her cloak from her shoulders, her boots from her feet, unpicks the pins holding her hair up off her neck. She sits on the ironwood chest as she brushes out the knots and tangles, her eyes following the flames leaping and licking at the blackened hearth. She watches as the sparks and embers drift and form shapes and shadows – of king and queen, of lord and lady, nodding, smiling, clasping arms, bowing heads. _My lady got her wish_ , she thinks solemnly, _the stones of the south replace the snows of home… but at what cost?_ Her hair hangs heavy and loose down her back, a great shiny wave of black swirling at her hips; she sets down the brush, begins to pull at the lacings of her gown. _A broken boy and a brooding lord, that is the price of southron kindness, that is the cost of taking fate’s hand without a backward glance to home, my Lady Stark_.

The latch lifts and the door slides open and slides shut and the latch falls back down with a soft thump. She does not look up from her laces, her hair hiding her profile from him as he turns the key in the lock and steps away from the stout wooden door. The knots seem to grow tighter, the laces thinner till they twist helplessly from her fingers and she throws them down with a sigh. She turns her back on him; he watches as her shoulders rise up and her hands clench at her sides.

“Nell,” he starts, but she raises a hand to silence him.

“When do you leave?” Her voice is bleak and hard.

“First light. The wagons have left already out of the east gate.”

“How long will you stay in that viper’s pit?”

“As long as this badge pins my collar. As long as I am oath-bound by duty and honour to serve as Hand of the King.”

She turns at that, her eyes blue flame in the firelight. “Honour?” she says, her voice an angry hiss. “You speak to me now of _honour_?” She steps forward, all fury and fire, yet her nose reaches only to his chest. She stands on tiptoe, pushing at his shoulders, brave as a bear, slight as a deer. “Was it honour that drove you to pluck me from my home of black rock and salt weeds?” Her voice lowers now, quiet and deep and deadly as the black pool in the godswood. “Was it honour that moved your hand to mine? Was it honour that drove us both to secrets and whispers and shadows?” Her eyes are shining with unshed tears. _She will never let them fall_ , he thinks sadly, _she is ironborn and iron-hard_. She raises her fists, striking him hard on his chest. The blow doesn’t rock him, but he staggers back. “Speak, damn you,” she whispers. “Please just speak.”

She is surprised by the warmth of his mouth on her own. For a moment, she is still beneath his kiss, robbed of her anger, feeling her body melt against his. The world blurs to darkness as her eyes close; everything past and present and future vanishes. Her hands smooth from fists and flatten against his chest, her mouth opens to his, his fingers run down over her ribs.

“Honour does not exist when I am inside you,” he breathes onto her lips. “It is a shell, a shadow compared to the light you bring me.” His arms circle her then and pull her up against him. She starts to pull away but one of his hands finds her head and holds her fast. “Stay still, damn you,” he growls, his chest rumbling against her. Her fingers grip his neck tightly, tearing at his skin with her nails as he slips the laces loose from her gown and rips it from her arms. “I need you, Nell.” His voice is harsh and low; her eyes full of fire and hate. “I need you this night more than ever.”

“Is that all you have come for?” she hisses, pushing at his jaw, tearing at his cheek. “A farewell fuck? A last tussle with your pillow-mate?” Her voice is red with anger, but he looks into her eyes and sees past the fire; there is panic there, too, panic at the thought of him leaving her behind, grief at the thought of him not coming back. “I can’t,” she seethes. “I can’t, Ned. I won’t let this be goodbye, I _won’t_.”

She fights him, naked now, her fingers dragging down the slope of his back as he pushes her toward the bed. He ignores her flailing hands and with an arm across her chest shoves her back amongst the pillows. She stares at him furiously and kicks out at him now, but he gets hold of her left knee and spreads her legs. He holds her down still with his arm to her breasts and with his other hand pulls the tunic from his body. His muscles glow and twist in the firelight as he lowers his belly onto hers, his hand now free to travel past her hip, skating against her thighs and sweeping onto her cunt. He finds her wet and wanting despite the fire in her gaze. They stare defiantly at each other until she cannot hold her moan any longer. Finally, she tips back her head and offers her throat to his mouth, her body to his. His lips trace her skin softly, tripping gradually up to her ear.

“Say it,” he breathes into the swirls of flesh. “Say that you want me as much as I want you.” _Tell me you need me as I need you, Nell_ , he thinks, _a need as dark and fierce and final as death, gods be true, gods be good, gods be damned_ …

“Ned – ”

He silences her with a twist of his fingers, a flutter of his thumb. She groans, the fire gone from her eyes. “Say it.” He aches to be inside her, so much so that he almost accepts her silence. He feels her hips quiver beneath his, her nipples harden and peak against his chest. Her lips move wordlessly; he longs to soothe them. “Elenore, please.” His voice lowers further, base and harsh. “Nell – ”

“I want you!” she cries suddenly, her body rising in an arc from the bed. “Gods, I need you so much I can barely breathe!”

Tears fill his eyes and drop down onto her throat. He buries his face into her breasts and twists his fingers again. She responds savagely, her voice a keening whine, and suddenly he is on his back, her hands pressed hard into his chest. He reaches up to get at her breasts but she slaps him away and moves her hands to pin him down by his upper arms now. Every rope of muscle, every vein, stands out on his body as she lowers herself onto his cock. He struggles not to groan at the feel of himself so deep within her molten warmth. She moves slowly at first, and sees the panic begin to shine in his eyes as she masters him. He watches with desperate desire, with fear and love and shame and hate. She is a goddess upon him, her body golden and glittering with sweat in the firelight, her wild hair free from its pins black as night and sticking to her hips, her eyes blue and black and grey all at once. She picks up her speed, leans down over him, her breasts skimming his chest, her hands tugging at his dark hair, her mouth hot and full on his. Her hips roll slow one moment and fast the next. She tortures him, pushing him close, close, closer and then slowing and pulling him back. Her forehead is flat against his as they move together now, his eyes locked to hers.

“Elenore,” he breathes hoarsely. “Nellie, please.”

“I can’t,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “I don’t want this to end, my love. I want this night to go on forever.”

But as she says it, her cunt clenches around him and she cries out, her whole body quaking. He moves in her moment of weakness and flips her onto her back, moving hard and fast now. In a second, she whimpers again, her legs jerking out from beneath his and rising to wrap around his back. He pulls back slowly, watching her pleasure build again. She looks as though she will cry, her eyes tight shut, her head tipped back, her fingers gripping her breasts. He slides into her again, slower this time, and dips his head to her breasts, lapping at her nipple, denting it with his teeth. He rocks slowly within her. Her fingers bury themselves into his mess of dark hair and grip tight. He looks up over her heaving breasts to find her staring down at him now, her brow furrowed, her lips parted and pleading.

“No night can last forever,” he murmurs. “But the memory of it can.” He leans down to take her lips, his kiss robbing her regained breath. “Remember this, here, now, my love.” His voice is strained and thick but he keeps his rhythm slow, his strokes deep and long. “Remember this when you bid me goodbye on the morrow – when what happens here will be no more than an ache between your legs, a bruise fading on your throat.” He kisses her jaw, her cheeks, her chin and she tips back her head, whimpering, luxuriating in his gentle nursing of her with his lips. “Because I will, my love. The thought of your heat and hands will keep me warm on the Kingsroad until you come back to me.”

“Promise me,” she whispers, holding his face gently in her hands, her brow flickering with frantic pleasure and pain. “Promise me we will find a way.”

“I promise,” he says, low and slow. At that, his hips still and start and stop again and they hold each other tight as their release comes upon them like a storm; he growls into her neck, she lets out a fragile little whimper. “We will not be apart for long, my love.” His voice is hoarse and dark as the smoke rising through the chimney. “I promise, Nell, I promise.”


	6. A Lord's Goodbye

Nell wakes in the quiet hour before dawn, the fire burned low to embers, the red curtains of her bed fluttering in the snow-swept air creeping in through the open window. _Ned_. She sits up in time to see the door pulling closed, the motion practised and swift and quiet, but she is on her feet and running softly to the door before Ned can pull it fully shut. His face is pale and drawn from lack of sleep, but his eyes turn bright when he sees her naked as her nameday and reaching out for him.

“Slipping away like a thief come first light,” she whispers, her cracked voice betraying the happy smile on her lips. “Would you not even say goodbye?” She falls forward into his arms. He wraps her tight to his chest and shelters her against the rough stone wall of the narrow corridor. She hears his heartbeat, slow and steady, thrum through her cheek. “I had a dream last night, my love. I saw a mockingbird flitting alive as rain in some silver light whilst you lay soaked and shivering on the cobbles beneath its wings.” She shivers despite the warmth of his body around hers and looks up into his eyes. “Will you promise to be careful, Ned? I fear the faceless terrors you see in the shadows hide half a hundred other foes, each more fearsome than the next.” She strokes his smooth beard, runs her thumb across his lips. “So be careful, my love, and come back to me.”

He lifts her into his embrace then, her feet scrabbling at the air as her legs rise to wrap around his hips. He tightens his arms around her, his hand smoothing her dark hair, running the tresses down her back as she buries her face into his neck, her hands clutching desperately at his shoulders. He pulls her head back gently by her hair and kisses her, feels his heart swell and shatter as she whimpers beneath his lips and grabs at his beard and face. “I will watch for rain and wings and silver light,” he promises her, his voice quiet and full. “And I will come back to you.”

She kisses him harder now and when she draws back from his mouth and rests her forehead to his, she is breathing hard, her eyes glittering with tears. “Flesh of my flesh,” she whispers, pressing her lips to his forehead. “Blood of my blood.” A kiss to each cheek. “Bone of my bone.” She takes his mouth again, but softer now, her lips a sweet sorrowful song on his. He smiles at her, his grey eyes soft as a summer storm.

“Hearth and home and heart tree,” he murmurs, setting her down from his arms and pressing a kiss to her brow. “Remember that.” He turns from her and walks swiftly down the narrow corridor, each step falling sharp and quick as a knife to his side. He disappears round a twist toward the staircase and leaves her there before the door to her little room, her heart as bare and blue as her body in the soft dawn light.

ლ

The children gather in the snowy courtyard, a ragged line of fur-trimmed cloaks and wolfhead pendants. Nell looks down at their heads of red and black and their eyes meet hers in turn: Tully blue and wolf grey. She straightens collars and evens sleeves amidst groans of indifference and half-hearted protest. Lady Catelyn stands at the end of the line, gazing woodenly ahead, oblivious to all but one of her children, her wine-drunk gaze locked on the turret where he sleeps a deep dreamless sleep, his broken body bound in blankets and furs. Night and day his mother tends to him; but she leant heavily on Nell’s shoulder to descend the stairs this morning, brought out by duty to bid her lord husband farewell. Now she stands and sways on her feet, her lips red and sore from being worried by her teeth, her cheeks hollow from lack of sleep and sunlight. _The mother is as broken as her boy_ , Nell thinks, _one in heart, the other in body_.

“I’m very cross with my father,” says a quick little voice. Nell lowers her eyes from her lady’s gaunt face and looks down. She smiles as Arya scowls up at her.

“Why is that, little one?” asks Nell, tucking Arya’s unruly dark hair back into its plaited bun. Arya shakes her head like a bull bothered by a fly.

“Because he is leaving you here,” says Arya. “The _king_ told him to bring you south with us, I heard him say it.” She chews her lip. “But father said no, said your place was here with my lady mother. And now all I’ll have for company is that old septa and my stupid sister.” She pulls a face and glares. “ _They_ won’t tell me tales of piskies and faeries and sea monsters. _They_ won’t sing me sailor’s rhymes and pirate ballads and siren’s spells. _They’ll_ sing songs of the seven and stitch their pretty kerchiefs.” She stamps her little foot; it’s all Nell can do but bite back her laughter and stare down seriously. “I told father he should take you to sing all your songs to the king and his court. I’m sure they would like your songs, Nell, I’m _sure_ of it. But he wouldn’t hear it. A handmaid’s place is with her lady, that’s what he kept saying and – ”

“And he will keep saying it,” says a dark voice behind them. “And if you ask Nell, she’ll tell you the same, Arya Stark.” Ned steps beside them, his great fur-lined travelling cloak making his shoulders twice as broad. “Now say your goodbyes, sweet one, we are already late in leaving.”

Arya scowls at him and turns back to Nell. “Goodbye then, Nellie,” she says, and she steps into Nell’s embrace. “ _Long we’ve tossed on the rolling main_ ,” comes her muffled sing-song voice where she buries her face in Nell’s belly, “ _now we’re safe ashore, Jack_ …”

“ _Don’t forget yer old shipmate_ ,” joins Nell, laughing now and Arya pulls back and laughs too, “ _faldee, raldee, raldee, raldee, rye-eye-doe_!” Nell watches as the sleek dark head runs across the courtyard to a waiting horse. Sansa sits her own palfrey already; the blue-eyed, red-haired image of her mother. But her smile is warm and true as she waves a hand to Nell in farewell.

“They’ll miss you,” says Ned softly from beside her.

“One will miss my fingers for plaiting hair and my eyes for choosing gowns,” murmurs Nell, keeping her gaze off Ned’s face as she feels tears prick her throat. “The other will miss my voice for bawdy songs and dark fairytales.” She sighs and bites her lip to stem the sadness seeping like bile into her mouth. “And I’ll miss them.” She turns to face him. “But you are right as ever, my lord. My place is here.”

“Would that I could kiss the sadness from your face, Nell Northwood,” breathes Ned, his eyes soft and sad on hers. “Would that I could.” He lifts her hand to his lips: a lord’s chaste goodbye to his loyal ward, no more. But his eyes tell a different goodbye; the look he gives her is of flame and spice, a look that speaks of the shadows and soft heat of the night before, a look that says he will not forget her surrender, her sound, her scent. She shudders at that, a restless shiver in the cold of the courtyard, and he smiles knowingly. “You are a good woman, my love.” He sets her hand back down by her hip and steps back from her. “Sing a song or two to my gods in their grove while I am gone, will you?”

“You know I will,” she whispers, giving a little curtsey, fighting every bone and beat of blood in her body that tells her to run into his arms and cover his face in kisses. “Now walk from me, bid farewell to your lady wife, and climb onto your horse, my lord.” She meets his eyes full with hers, feels his heart surge as if it lives within her ribs alongside her own, and smiles up at him. “Hearth and home and heart tree, I’ll guard all three for you, my love. I’ll guard all three with heart and song until you come back, sweet Ned.”

He walks past her with tears dappling his eyes and a smile lingering on his cheeks and he does as he is bid. He kisses the hands of his lady wife and murmurs a few sweet words to her. Nell steps up beside her once Ned has left her. She takes her lady’s cold hand in her own and holds it tight. They stand dazed as ghosts in the weak sunlight and watch with wooden eyes their lord mount up and slip away through the eastern gate.

 _Hearth and home and heart tree_ , Nell thinks desperately. _Hearth and home and heart tree, I’ll remember, love, I’ll remember_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Lines lifted from a British naval song of the Napoleonic era: _Don’t Forget Your Old Shipmate_.


	7. Fair and Foul

The godswood is still and quiet and silver; moonlight falls soft and thick through the red-gold leaves, limning them white and grey and pearl as they drift and float across the deep black pool. Nell sits at the foot of the heart tree, leaning back against its crooked roots as Ned is like to do. But she has no greatsword to rasp and hone; her hands lay still in her lap, her eyes drifting quick as the leaves across the glassy water. Her heart is sad and heavy as a stone in her chest. _Eight days since last we loved_ , she thinks, _eight days that stretch to eternity_. The heart tree is hard comfort at her back; but it is not flesh, it is not blood. _It is not my sweet Ned_. She hums a little beneath her breath, a sad soft little tune punctuated by the odd lilting verse.

“ _Oh, the magpie brings us tidings_

_Of news both fair and foul_

_She’s more cunning than the raven_

_More wise than any owl_

_For she brings us news of the harvest_

_Of the barley, wheat, and corn_

_And she knows when we’ll go to our graves_

_And how we shall be born_.”

A howl sounds deep and sudden as a storm and shatters the quiet of the godswood. Nell feels the little hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Another howl joins the chorus and soon the hounds are baying and barking from their kennel. She scrambles up from her nest of roots and leaves and starts cutting her way through the grove of oak and ash and ironwood, weaving her way back to the tumbledown wall. The noise is full and heavy here: shouts and shrieks and whinnies and barking all blended with the singing of the wolves. There is smoke in the air, streaming thick as the moonlight in the grove. The library tower blazes in the night, orange flames mixing with the dark sky.

Nell takes the wall with a leap and runs through the courtyard. Sleep-heavy faces swarm from the barracks and armoury, forming ragged lines bearing bucket after bucket from well to courtyard to keep. She dashes beneath the archway and hears someone shout her name. She turns quick as a deer and sees Robb Stark, his hair as red as the flames. He holds her by the shoulders and looks down at her with those blue Tully eyes.

“Nell,” he says, his voice rising to a shout to be heard above the cacophony of sound and smoke. “Go to my lady mother – she will need a calm head about her.” Then he lets go of her and rushes to the outer bailey, with a lean grey shadow at his ankles. It is only then that Nell realises that the wolves have stopped singing. _What storm is hidden by this smoke_ , she thinks. _What blood is drowned out by the baying of the hounds_ …

She takes the steps two at a time as she winds up into the keep, her breath quick and sharp in her throat as she rounds a corner and sees the door of Bran’s bedchamber hanging open. She runs to it, skirts and hair flying, boots skidding on the flagstones.

“Thank you,” whispers a voice in the darkness.

Catelyn is half-crumpled to the floor, her hair ripped up and red-gold from the orange light seeping through the shutters. Nell crouches beside her and Catelyn looks at her with glazed eyes and throws back her head and laughs, her cheeks a mess of purple and red. Nell lifts her head from her lady’s hysteria and gold eyes meet hers where the wolf lies across his broken boy on the bed. His muzzle is dark crimson in the half-light. Nell soon sees where the blood has come from.

Lying mangled half-a-foot away from Catelyn is a man in plain brown wool, a man with horseshit on his cracked boots, a man with a bloody hole where his throat once was. Nell looks from him to Bran and back again and cannot hold her scream whilst Catelyn, cradled in her arms, tips back her head and shakes hard with laughter.

ლ

They break their fast in the great hall. Robb sits in his father’s chair, heeling out a black bread trencher for his little brother. Ser Rodrik Cassel sits to his left, frowning into his plate of blood sausage and blackened bacon. A serving girl pours thin ale with downcast eyes. Robb raises his gaze to meet with Nell’s.

“My mother…” he begins, but his voice falters. “How is she?”

“Bruised and bloodied, my lord,” says Nell softly, watching Rickon stabbing at his bread. “Maester Luwin bandaged her hands and gave her milk of the poppy once Old Nan had helped me wash the blood from her skin.” Nell looks down at her plate, pushing the untouched food to one side. “She sleeps now, deep and dreamless. It is what she needs.”

Robb nods fiercely and for a moment he looks more like a boy than ever. Nell feels pity for him well in her heart. “The maester says she will be herself again once she wakes,” she says gently. “She has survived on grief and duty and nought else these past weeks, my lord. She is wrought exhausted by it all – but it will pass, of that I am sure.”

“You will sit with her, Nell?” says Robb, his voice carrying a son’s question, not a lord’s command. “Night and day, you will sit with her and watch over her as she has done for Bran?”

“Of course I will,” says Nell, with a soft smile. “A handmaid’s place is with her lady. I shall not leave her bedside till she is well and wakeful.”

Robb smiles at her, his eyes sad and shiny with tears. “Thank you, Nell,” he murmurs, inclining his head. “I… thank you.”

ლ

Lady Catelyn sleeps through four full days, her head silent on her pillows, her bandaged hands folded atop the furs and blankets pulled up to her throat. Her face softens the longer she sleeps, the shadows are chased from under her eyes, the frown leaves her brow. Nell has sat at her bedside, true to her word, night and day, snatching an hour’s sleep on the truckle bed at the foot of the hardwood frame. She has fed her honey and milk from a child’s silver spoon, wiped her face clean with warm water and smoothed the hair red as flame back from her brow. When her lady’s face has grown tight by pain or bad dreams, Nell has sung her lullabies of the riverlands, of the northern reaches, of sea and ship and salt winds, softly, softly, and watched as her face smooths in dreamless sleep once again.

 _The same sweet melodies I sing to your lord husband when he shares my bed_ , she thinks, and she hates herself for it. She hums a tune beneath her breath now as she moves about the bedchamber, banking the fire up and watching as the flames devour old bandages and bloodied rags. _Hearth and home and heart tree… I have ripped up the roots of all three these nine years past_.

“Nell,” comes a voice from the bed. “Nell, are you there?”

“Yes, my lady, I am here.” Nell moves back to the bedside and meets those eyes, blue and bright and bewildered. “I am here and happy to see you awake.”

“How long?” asks Catelyn.

“Four days, my lady.”

“And my son?”

Nell glances down and up again, a sad smile on her lips. “Bran is the same, my lady. He sleeps sound with his wolf at his side.”

“I dreamed of blood and daggers and a half-torn throat,” whispers Catelyn, and a shiver passes through her. She flexes her fingers. “But the pain in my hands assures me that it was no dream.” Her eyes flash to Nell’s. “Someone sent that man to kill my boy, of that I am sure.” Another shudder wracks her shoulders. “In a moment, I will want bread and honey and the maester to change these bandages… but first, Nell, you must make ready.”

Nell tilts her head and looks down into her lady’s eyes. “Make ready for what, my lady?”

She watches as Catelyn hefts herself up to sit back amongst the pillows and reaches out a bandaged hand. Nell takes it gently and allows herself to be pulled close till Catelyn’s breath brushes softly at her ear.

“My sister Lysa believes the Lannisters murdered her husband, Jon Arryn.” Catelyn’s voice is low and cool. “And now my boy is left broken and nearly butchered in wake of their royal visit. He is safe for the moment, but I mean to find the truth of all this.” She draws back to look into Nell’s eyes. “And if even part of what I suspect turns out to be true… my girls and Ned tread close to the teeth of the beast.” She grips Nell’s hand tight as her stiff fingers allow. “One word in the wrong ear could mean their lives.”

“My lady, what would you have me do?” asks Nell.

“Make ready,” says Catelyn again, the fire returning to her voice. “We will take ship from White Harbor and find the truth out for ourselves.”

“You mean for us to go to – ”

“King’s Landing,” finishes Lady Catelyn, her eyes luminous and determined. “We make for the viper’s pit, dear Nell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. _Magpie_ : verse taken from a beautiful folk song by The Unthanks based on a superstitious sixteenth-century English nursery rhyme about magpies.


	8. Iron to Ice

The ride to White Harbor had been lengthy and uncomfortable. Catelyn Stark had set a fast pace; man and beast alike had arrived sweat-stained and weary, weaving through the white-washed city in a daze down to the docks in search of boat and captain. They swayed straight from saddle to ship, sailing forth past the grey-green stump of Seal Rock and out to open ocean whilst the sun still hung low in the sky. Only then had Catelyn rested, retiring to a cabin below deck, a green-faced Ser Rodrik standing seasick sentinel without. Nell had stayed on deck as the _Storm Dancer_ cut its way toward the Bite and beyond; her voyage salt and seaspray and shanties sung merry and deep over braziers come night.

She walks the decks even now with White Harbor’s neat streets and smoky market square a full eight days behind her. She is surprised how much she has missed the sea – these past nine years she has barely allowed herself to think of it. _But I sailed in sleep_ , she thinks, _I rode waves and was snatched by currents and tossed by swells and smelled salt and sand and sun burning hull and prow in my dreams_. Now it is all around her, the blackwood body of the _Storm Dancer_ a husk of dry wood in a world of water. It foams and slashes against the ship, sending up spits and spouts of seawater; her cloak is stiff with salt spray, her cheeks swept smooth by wind and water, her hair made rough by breeze and brine. But her smile is true and warm and constant. Her lady comes up from her cabin time to time during the day but her legs stagger with the sway of the ship and she clutches at Nell to save from falling. Ser Rodrik is even worse; his knees buckle as easily as his belly. He wanders from port to starboard, retching over the rails and growing greener by the day. _He should thank the gods for an easy voyage_ , thinks Nell, _the others only know how he would cope with rough seas and swift winds_.

“I’m surprised you’re not as sick as your fellow northmen,” quips one of the crew as he passes by her on the deck.

Nell smiles at him wanly. _I’ve iron in me too_ , she thinks, _iron and ice, salt and snow_. She turns her face to gaze over the rails. The evening is calm, and the sea stretches flat and pink and orange in the dying light of the sun. The wind has dropped too, the current soft and slow against the blackwood body of the ship, and for a moment Nell forgets the rush of the journey, the urgency with which they ride. For a moment the world is calm and quiet and peaceful.

Memories buried deep and dragged down by time and space stir in the depths of her mind as she watches the sea now. She remembers tall spits of black rock smashed and chased by the relentless rolling of the Sunset Sea. She remembers dark kelp and green-red seaweed and the bent figures of ironmen raking it up for fire-fuel; grey-blue eyes like the sea, brown-black hair as weathered and rough as the rocks of the islands. She remembers arching bridges of dripping stone and walls white-green with salt spray and lichen. _And hands_ , she thinks, _hands as weathered and withered as the walls… hands slithering like cold kelp down my bodice, fingers creeping strong as iron up my skirt_ …

Her belly roils at the memory, her heart thuds hard against her ribs. She doesn’t oft let herself think of that weathered castle of Pyke; but once she knew its span of rope bridges and buckling towers and covered walkways as well as she knows the bones of her own hands. _The Lord Reaper’s bedchamber, aye I knew that, too_ … She shudders now in the soft pale warmth of the setting sun and wraps her arms around herself, pulling the cloak tight against her body, rubbing her cheek against its fur-trim as she likes to do when Ned circles her in his arms, sheltering her within his own deep cloak and heat. _Ned_. She can see his face swim in the currents before her eyes as it was those nine years ago. He had a grim little face back then, no light nor laughter touched his grey eyes, and his brows were heavy as a sea storm. She remembers well how his face had changed that first night he stepped foot on Pyke. His beard was black with blood, his shoulders square and hard from battle, his grey eyes dark and deadly as the swirling storm at his back – but he’d sat up at the high table for his king’s victory feast and those eyes had turned bright as sunlit sea.

 _What song flowed from me that night?_ ponders Nell. _Was it sea shanty or siren’s spell that smothered the storm from his stare?_ Heat floods her cheeks even now at the memory of the first look they’d shared. She remembers the gown she was wearing, thick velvet in the black-and-gold of House Greyjoy, the bodice cut low and square to show her shoulders, her skin sun-browned and golden in the torchlight, her black hair pinned up leaving her young throat smooth and bare. They’d sat her by the brazier beneath the high table and pressed a lyre in her lap and commanded her to sing. She can feel the prickle of a hundred eyes on her now, men of the north and south and ironlands alike, hunched on their benches, heeling out bread and clanking tankards of mead; the smell of ale and fish-stew hangs sweet and sour in her nose even now. She’d sung a pretty song or two, soft words of sea and ship and mermaid and silver light flowing from her lips, sweet and sorrowful, lifting and lilting across the deep black hall, turning men to stare down into their cups and sigh a little at the beauty of the sound. She’d set down the lyre, her fingers still hemming out the final note on its strings, and raised her eyes from her lap and there he sat high above her, a lord in a surcoat of white and grey, a lord with a bloody beard and tears turning his eyes to stars in the torchlight. _My soul fled my breast and flew to him that night_ , she thinks, _it slipped easy as my song into his ears and found his heart_.

She holds the silver wolf’s head at her throat now, thumbs the worn lines of their names, strokes its smooth shape. _If I won his heart with a song, he won mine with a mere stare that night… with his starlit eyes and gift of silver_ …

ლ

Nell dreams of heavy water and cracked stone, of crumbling walls, dipping bridges, of thin soil and scarce trees. She sees faces, hard and stony as the land they call home, eyes the blue-grey of water, the green-black of kelp. From half a hundred faces, a single one looms great and tall and terrible. His eyes are the hard black of the sea at night, his hair grey and white and silver hanging past his shoulders, framing a face harsh as winter, dark as storm. He is thin and gaunt, but his grip is iron and when his hand closes on her hair he pulls her along behind him with the strength of a thousand white-tipped waves. Driftwood crowns bob the currents that snatch at her feet as she stumbles and falls to her knees in his wake. She begs him to forgive her, to free her, but the wind snatches the words from her lips and with a slash of his hand to her cheek he sends her tumbling into the cold water slicing at her hips, pulling at her legs, dissolving her gown and leaving her clothed in salt winds and seaspray. The white-tipped waves beckon, the Drowned God calls – a voice as low and deep and crushing as the sea. _Whore_ , it roars, _whore_.

There is a hand gripping hard at her hair again and her face is plunged beneath the water. She chokes and splutters and fights the hand holding her head under the waves. _Whore_ , the voice sounds again, and she is sure it will be the last word she hears amidst the roar of the sea in her ears, she is sure she will die now, her lungs blue and fit to burst, the world a rush of black kelp and sea and storm before her eyes, _whore_. And then as sudden as it gripped her, the iron hand releases her hair. Something pulls her up gently from the cold cutting depths of the sea and another voice sounds now, soft as a summer storm in her ear. The world is a blur of white and grey and starlit eyes as she is lifted light as air to her feet. _Iron turns to ice_ , says the soft voice, _salt turns to snow_. The cold bite of chain lowers around her neck; it burns silver in the light. _I will keep you safe, Nell, I promise_ …

ლ

Nell wakes with a start, staring at a sea of blue so bright and true she fears for a moment her dreams weren’t dreams at all. Then she sees the hair red as flame twisting in soft dawn light and the sea of blue turns to Tully eyes and it is her lady staring down at her, shaking her shoulder with a bandaged hand.

“My lady?” Nell starts up from the low bunk in the depths of the _Storm Dancer_ ’s blackwood body and blinks stupidly, her mind a blaze of salt and silver and starlit eyes. _Iron and ice, salt and snow_ … She shakes her head and stares.

Catelyn’s eyes are luminous and her voice shakes with nervous excitement. “The captain sees the red glow of the city through his looking-glass.” She draws Nell to her feet and clasps her hands tightly in her own. “We will reach King’s Landing by the afternoon.” She pinches Nell’s cheek gently. “So wake and get your wits about you, Nell.”

Nell dresses in a grey gown and shakes the salt from her dark cloak. The wolf’s head slips silently between her skin and gown, nestled soft atop her heart. As she emerges onto the deck, a soft wind thick as butter ruffles at her hair and sweeps it black and wild down her back; the world is warmer here than she’s ever known it. The ship cuts through the deep waters of Blackwater Bay and she sees the red glow of the city without need of the captain’s looking-glass.

As distant as a dream, all but invisible but she senses it from where she stands swaying on the _Storm Dancer_ ’s deck. A city built of redstone and blood and smoke and fire, home to thousands and thousands of people moving thick and quick as black rats in its streets and byways and smoky market squares, and perched above them all on Aegon’s Hill the towers and turrets of the Red Keep.

 _Black rats might live in the beast’s belly_ , she thinks grimly, _whilst lords and ladies dance around its teeth… but whispers feed the great red heart of this stinking city, whispers and webs and soft words and shadows_. And she thinks of grey and white and starlit eyes and she wants to weep but she sets her jaw instead.

“Iron turns to ice,” she whispers to herself, the words spinning from her mind to her tongue with a life of their own. “Salt turns to snow.”

Nell stares hard at the red glow looming larger on the horizon now and feels her heart swell against the silver wolf’s head kissing her chest. _Home to black rats and lords and ladies and whispers and webs_. She turns her face to the soft light of the sun and closes her eyes. _And Ned_. She opens her eyes and feels him swirl within her ribs like dark smoke; a flutter starts in her belly and a smile lifts her cheeks. _And my sweet Ned_.


	9. The Street of Silk

It has been half a day since they arrived in King’s Landing. To Lady Catelyn’s surprise they were met at the docks by a handful of gold-cloaked guardsmen led by a lord with a pointed beard and silver strands in his dark hair. Nell watched the surprise falter and slip from her lady’s face when Catelyn laid eyes on him. He kissed her hand and she greeted him as an old friend. Now they sit in the rooms he led them to, perched in the upper floors of a three-storey timbered-stone building to the southeast of the city. The windows are scarlet glass, and ornate red lanterns burn bright over the wide doorway opening out onto the cobbles of the Street of Silk. Nell sits still and quiet in a windowseat heaped with silk cushions and velvet pillows. Outside the world is tinged crimson and cherry by the glass; a rush of people move steadily along the street below and now and again one rears back his head and whistles to the windows above. The answering shouts from the whores in the bordering rooms and balconies are enough to make Ser Rodrik blush and splutter.

Catelyn paces restlessly across the room, her leather boots thumping out a soft marching beat. She has refused to change out of her travel-stained gown and cloak but relented to wash her face and hands with cool water and comb her wild red hair into a plait. She clasps her bandaged hands loosely in front of her skirts and keeps frantic eyes trained on the worn wooden floor she treads. The sounds of the tavern rise up from below: glasses clinking, soft laughter, drunken shouts. A heavy moan comes from the room next door and Ser Rodrik hastily takes his leave to take some air without.

“If Ser Rodrik’s cheeks go any brighter, they will hang his head up as a lantern above the door,” says Nell, her voice light and easy. Catelyn stops in her pacing and turns to face her. For a moment, she is silent and Nell sits tense, but then she gives a soft laugh and sits down on the plush divan in the centre of the room. Her shoulders slump a little then and the frenzy goes out of her body with her sigh. “My lady?”

“If the winds had been swifter we might have made it to this place without word overtaking us,” says Catelyn quietly. “But the whispers sailed faster than our ship and we are discovered.” She rises and walks to sit beside Nell on the windowseat. “The man who met us at the docks is Lord Petyr Baelish.”

“The master of coin?” says Nell.

Catelyn nods. “He was my father’s ward and my sister’s first love… but it was me he desired.” A flush of colour stains her cheeks. “He asked for my hand and even when he was beaten blue by Brandon Stark’s blade, he told me he loved me as pure and true as sunshine loves a flower.” She brushes back a strand of hair from her brow. “Now he greets me at the docks of this viper’s pit, a man grown with only the smallest shadow of the boy he once was clinging to his eyes and words.” She looks deep into Nell’s eyes now and Nell sees the confusion in her gaze. “Am I mad to trust him still, Nell?”

“What is trust in a place like this, my lady?” says Nell, her eyes as soft and quick as her voice. “Even the beggars at the dockyard looked at us through eyes flat with suspicion and distrust. I dare say they’d soon as bite your hand as take the coin from it.” She glances back to the scarlet glass. “But what choice do we have, my lady? We must put faith in your lovesick Littlefinger to bring your lord husband to you – but trust? What need have you of trust in him? Send him out and speak in whispers to your lord husband, that is all the trust you dare show him.”

Catelyn looks at her handmaid full and true now as if she is seeing her for the first time. Nell shifts a little beneath her blue gaze and almost flinches when her lady lays a bandaged hand upon her cheek.

“Nine years you have called the north your home,” says Catelyn gently. “Nine years you have traded the salt winds of the ironlands for snow and ice and hard frost… yet your heart has escaped the north’s frozen grip.” She strokes Nell’s cheek softly. “It remains as constant as the sea and as like to float as it is to sink you.” Her hand flutters down from her face. “Snow melts once it comes south, ice thaws and hard frost turns to dew on the hills… but the sea swells and surges and grows stronger.” She takes Nell’s hand in her own and presses tight. “Will you grow stronger now, Nell? Will you sweep away soft snow and thawed ice and wash the dew from the hills? Will you float them home safe again? Will you sink the heat that hurts them?”

Nell stares at Catelyn as if she has gone mad, but her heart is sinking slow and steady for she knows what her lady is asking. “My lady, my place is with you,” she whispers and her voice catches in her throat. “A handmaid’s place is with her lady.”

Catelyn smiles then. “That is my lord husband talking,” she murmurs. “But what does he know of a handmaid’s place? What does he know of a woman’s power? What does any man know of either?” She shakes her head and gives a little laugh. “Your place, dear Nell, as handmaid, as woman, as friend, is wherever you are needed most.”

 _Whore_ , thinks Nell, _that is all you are, Nell Northwood, whore and harlot and heathen to let your lady talk so gently to you_. She blinks furiously now, her eyes glittering with tears, and looks down at their hands: one made bulky with bandages, one pale and lithe as a crescent moon. “I will go wherever you command, my lady. I will be a hand to help and to heed whoever needs me most.”

“I know you will, dear Nell,” says Catelyn, squeezing her fingers. “I know you will do all that and more.”

ლ

Dusk has fallen over the city when at last Nell spots a handful of riders turn down the Street of Silk. At their head is Lord Baelish, his hair bare of hood, the mockingbird on his doublet worked in silver thread and dancing in the torchlight. He sits a pretty white palfrey with the same dancing bird picked out in silver and moonstone on its harness. Two men in gold cloaks and black plate ride either side of him, driving a path through the thin crowd who dip and sway through the cobbled street in search of cook-shop and cunt. Behind the gold-cloaked guardsmen she sees two men in drab brown cloaks hiding the bulk of swords at their hips; between them a figure sits a black stallion. Nell feels her heart rise and swell and burst in her chest as her eyes fall on him. _Ned_.

His face is shadowed by the hood of his dark cloak, but she would know him anywhere. She knows the dip of his broad shoulders, the sway of his body in the saddle, the regular twist of his head to glance behind him, his hidden eyes checking movement of friend or foe. His hands, those warrior’s hands, holding the reins of his warhorse as easily as they heft sword and shield and silver necklaces in a moonlit grove. He glances up from beneath the shadows of his hood and for a moment his eyes pass over the scarlet window from which she stares. He doesn’t notice her; but the flare of his damp grey eyes sends a jolt of fire through her veins. She shifts in her seat and feels her body thrum with heat and hunger against the confines of her gown. _I want him_ , she thinks shamelessly, _gods be good, I want him hard inside me now_ …

“Nell, what is it?” asks Catelyn from behind her. “What do you see? Is it them?”

Blood blooms bright and boiling in Nell’s cheeks and shame overtakes her lust as she feels her wetness warm her thighs. “Yes, my lady,” she says, her voice cool with hard-won control. “Lord Baelish is leading your lord husband beneath the lanterns of the doorway.” She turns to face Catelyn; her lady is seated serene as anything on the plush divan, but her eyes are wild. “Shall I wait without, my lady?”

Catelyn gives a tiny shake of her head. “No,” she says, her voice quiet. “Come and sit beside me for the minute. Once Lord Baelish has showed Ned up to the room, you can wait without and make sure he does not spy at us through the keyhole.”

Nell inclines her head and goes to sit on the divan. There is a pause in the noise of the tavern below and distantly she hears the beat of boots on wooden steps. Catelyn touches Nell’s hand quickly and looks solemnly at her.

“Remember what has been said in this room today,” she says quietly, tweaking Nell’s fingers with her stiff hand. “Remember what you have promised.”

Nell nods again, a small smile wavering on her lips. A knock sounds on the door and her lady bids them enter. Ser Rodrik’s face is a paler shade of crimson now but his eyes are downcast and his gait is stiff as he steps into the room. Littlefinger sweeps in behind him with a cool smile playing on his cheeks, his eyes quick and cold as coin, amusement writ plain across his face. Then Catelyn leaps up with a cry and runs across the room to her lord husband and takes him in her arms. Nell watches them embrace, her heart thudding hard against her ribs, and Ned raises his eyes over his lady wife’s shoulder and they burst black and cold and confused to see her face staring up at him from the divan.

“My lady,” whispers Ned, his voice low with wonderment.

“I thought you’d never come, my lord,” says Catelyn, her voice muffled by his chest and Nell hears the sob threatening to crack her throat.

There is a flurry of words and Nell sits numbly throughout, the warmth dying from her heart as they talk of daggers and shadows and cut-throats in the night and she remembers all the sorrow and grief with which they sailed and rode tide and turf.

When at last Catelyn turns to nod at her, Nell rises from the divan and walks meekly from the room, Littlefinger at her back. He shuts the door behind them and leads her a little way down the twisting corridor, cutting through a room draped in silk and satin, and out onto its buckling stone balcony. Here without the red glow of the brothel’s glass, the city is black and blue and purple in the early night; the soft blush of lanterns limning the cobbles in gold flame. Lord Baelish turns to face her now in the warm glow of torch and starlight, his quick eyes flitting back and forth from her lips to her brows.

“My lady Stark spoke to me in whispers earlier,” he says, and his voice is cool and quick as his eyes. “She told me that her handmaid is to stay with us here in King’s Landing.” He studies her intently now. “As far as king and court are concerned, Lady Catelyn sent you down from White Harbor to join her lord husband’s household here in the red city. You sailed with only salt winds and seaspray as company… do you follow?”

Nell meets his gaze, her lips firm. “I bid my lady goodbye in White Harbor and caught ship to King’s Landing to play handmaid to her daughters.”

Littlefinger smiles, cool and quick, his eyes leaping. “Clever girl,” he murmurs, his voice softening with a chuckle and his hand reaches up swift as lightning to trail a finger across her cheek. “Cat will leave for Winterfell on the morrow.” He sees the question in Nell’s gaze and chuckles again. “Once your lady is safely away along the Kingsroad, I will send for you and see you to the Tower of the Hand.” His eyes darken then. “I am sure Lord Stark will be pleased to have another homely face about his lonely keep.”

Nell thinks of the cold black stare Ned gave her in the warm room of the brothel and she shivers. _He will be wild as a cornered wolf_ , she decides grimly, _angry as a bear, strong as a giant… he will rip me apart with hot hands and sharp words and send me home the minute he is able… and yet, and yet_ … she thinks of his hard warrior’s hands and broad shoulders and swaying hips and flaring grey eyes and feels heat pool fast between her legs. A sigh rattles through her lips and she looks past Littlefinger to the smoky city sprawling before the stone balcony.

“As you say, my lord,” says Nell, her tone demure and indifferent, but her mind is a wild flash of heat and fire and colour and spice, and she shifts her legs beneath her gown to ease the ache. “I will wait for your word once my lady has left the city.” She turns her face to hide her smile from Littlefinger and masters the leap of excitement in her eyes.

 _I will watch and wait for word_ , she thinks, _watch and wait and walk to my wild wolf as willingly as a lamb to slaughter_...


	10. The Wolf and the Lamb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

Nell picks a gown of loose dark silk from the clothes chest in the corner of the room. _Plain but pretty_ , she thinks as she pulls the laces closed against her ribs, _I wonder which of Littlefinger’s whores I rob_. She runs a hand over the borrowed gown, smoothing the skirts and tweaking the half-length sleeves. The dark drab cloak is her own; she draws the deep hood over her hair as she crosses the room and makes her way down the twisting corridor and timbered steps, passing through the stone entranceway and ornate red lanterns swinging on lead chains, and out onto the dusky cobbles of the Street of Silk. She mounts her waiting horse and follows without word the gold-cloaked man riding in front of her. They pass lamps being lit and two-penny whores hawking their wares, children chasing sticks and hoops in the streets, dogs barking and beggars raving, cook-shops and market stalls and silversmiths bolting doors and closing shutters for the night, taverns spilling ale-soaked music through lurching doorways and sagging windows.

Nell thinks of Lady Catelyn and Ser Rodrik as they rode off before the full light of day had leaked, their faces hidden by the shadows of their hoods, their spurs turned hard into the flanks of their borrowed horses. They were gone as quick as a morning mist descends, slithering off through the serpentine streets. _Leagues from here by now_ , Nell thinks, _and bound for home_. Theirs had been a brief farewell; Catelyn had pressed Nell’s hands and asked her to remember her promise. Ser Rodrik had squeezed Nell’s shoulder and bowed his ruddy head before getting up into his saddle. And Nell had watched them from the shadows of the brothel’s doorway and turned back to the little room in the buckling three-storey building. Word had come from Littlefinger by mid-afternoon and now she rides, her heart fluttering, her face tense within the darkness of the hood, and soon they are pulling up before a gatehouse of pale crimson stone and then riding beneath its archway into the belly of the Red Keep. Everything is a blur of red walls and turrets and towers and drawbridges and dry moats; she follows the flash of gold in front of her and dismounts when she is told to, hands the reins over, and walks in the direction she is bid.

 _Meek and willing as a lamb to slaughter_ , she thinks, _walking to where my wild wolf waits_...

ლ

She finds her way to the Tower of the Hand as a soft rain begins to fall. Torch flames gutter and hiss in their sconces along the castle walls, throwing shadows and red-gold light up to illuminate the raindrops falling like half a thousand needles in the darkening air. She passes battlements with milling men in golden cloaks and black ring-mail and ducks through archways manned by guards in crimson plate and patented half-helms. They look at her with bored eyes and little interest. At last she sees the grey-and-white of Winterfell standing sentinel outside the heavy oaken doors of the Tower of the Hand and her heart leaps at the friendly frowns of the northmen who wear the wool and satin cloaks. They greet Nell with smiles and sounds of surprise before they catch the urgency writ plain on her rain-swept face; she is ushered in through the heavy doors and told that Lord Stark sits the small council still.

She is shown to his private rooms and she waits demurely in a plush red-stitched chair as they close the door and leave her. She sheds her cloak once they have gone and sits for what feels like hours, her bright gaze hovering on the chairs and table and paper-strewn hardwood desk and guttering sconces cluttering the room, the tapestries of green and yellow warming the walls, the thick red rugs at her feet.

Dusk has turned to early night when at last the door to the room opens. She gets to her feet and stands in the pool of light thrown by the candles and torches, her shadow shivering and swaying like their flames. She feels a tremor go through her now and her breath catches in her throat, her belly pitches wild as a ship in stormy seas. Her eyes rise up from the shadows playing at her feet and meet with Ned’s as he stops stunned in the doorway. For a moment he is frozen, his forehead furrowed with surprise, and then he makes out her face in the half-light of candle and torch and lamp and anger is writ plain on his face. She feels a thrill of fear pull a string tight around her heart and she stares at him wide-eyed and motionless.

Fury hangs hot in his gaze, it sets the lines deep in his brow, pinches his mouth, makes his teeth work restlessly and his wild beard bob black and fierce against his throat. His shoulders are square and hard; his frame takes up half the doorway as he ducks his head to enter and turns blazing eyes to her.

“Ned – ”

His hand wrenches up into the air to silence her, his fingers closing to a fist as fast as they unfurl to point at her. He takes a step toward her, his head dipping to the side, his stare furious and unforgiving. She slips back against the wall, the stuccoed stone smooth and cool through her silk and satin; but her cheeks beat with blood and heat, her veins feel like flame against her skin.

“What is the meaning of this?” His voice is as hot and hard with anger as his eyes, but it is dangerously quiet. “Why are you not on a horse and riding hard for home?”

He is half a step away from her now; she feels his anger pulsing into her as if his body is naked flame. She should shrink from him, she is sure of it, yet she wants to draw closer, wants to take that half a step toward him, wants nothing more than to feel his body press against hers as hot and hard as the anger in his glare. She drops her eyes now, her cheeks blooming crimson, her voice scarce more than a whisper. “My lady ordered me to remain. She said my place is here.”

“Is that what your lady said, Elenore Northwood?” says Ned, and his voice has dropped even lower. “And what have I always said?” He grasps her chin in his hand when she stays silent and jerks her face up to look at him. “Hmm?” His teeth grind and work and clench and he stares down at her unblinking. “ _What_ have I always said?”

Nell gives a little whimper as his fingers tighten on her jaw. “That a handmaid’s place is with her lady.”

Ned’s nostrils flare as she speaks and his eyes narrow. “Then why is the handmaid a hundred leagues from her lady?”

“My lady said – ”

His hand flashes from her jaw to her throat; his fingers give a little squeeze. She whimpers again but her eyes are drunk with desire. She feels heat bloom between her legs, feels her breasts quicken with her breath, her nipples harden and fight against the silk gown. Ned glances down at her and sees everything in an instant. He shakes his head very slightly, presses her throat gently again. His head dips down and levels with hers, his nose almost brushing her skin, his eyes hard as ever – but hungry now as well as hot.

“Do you think your lady would say the same if she saw you now, Nell Northwood?” says Ned, and his voice is dark and deadly as the black pool in the godswood. She rolls her eyes away from him with a sorrowful hiss, but he rattles her in his grip and forces her to look at him. “Would she say your place was here if she saw you as you are now, Nell?” A sound starts low in his throat, half-growl, half-groan, and she feels her hips roll, feels the dampness creep onto her thighs in response, her body desperate for him after so many weeks apart. “Look at you,” he breathes, and his thumb forces her chin up again as his fingers squeeze her soft throat. His other hand trips down her side, bumping over each rib and rise, circling the swell of her hips. She gasps as he rips her gown to the side and catches her cunt in his palm. His eyes light then to feel how wet she is. “Would your lady be pleased at how slick you are in her service?”

She tips back her head as his fingers part her sex easily, running up and down the plush folds casually. She feels hot lust and shame cloud her heart, even as her thighs harden and her toes twitch and her breaths grow ragged. His other hand stays at her throat and when he jolts her head back to him she sees his face is hardening from fury to hot hunger, his eyes half-hooded and dark with need. _Wild wolf_ , she thinks, _wild, wild wolf… and mine_. She locks her eyes on his now and pulls the laces free from her side, slips her hands from the sleeves of the thin gown and lets it fall and hook about his arm at her hips. He watches her warily until he lets his eyes lower and fall on her heavy breasts. A groan shudders past clenched teeth and downturned lips now and his eyes fly at once back to her face; his hand leaves her throat to slam against the wall behind her head.

“My lady is a hundred leagues away, for true,” murmurs Nell, her fingers whispering through his beard, thumbing his lips. “But my lord is here before me.” Her lips follow the path her fingers have forged. “And my lord needs me.” She darts her tongue across his lips; hears his groan and tastes it. “And I seem wet and warm and happy to be in his service again – does that please him as much as it would displease my lady?”

Her head rocks back at the force of his kiss and she takes his tongue into her mouth and wraps her legs around his hips, her hands finding hard grip in his hair and wrenching his head to make their kiss deeper, darker, more desperate. His hand moves from her hip to grab at her waist, hefting the half-torn gown up around her belly, a growl rumbling low in his throat. _Wild, wild wolf_. Her hands clutch at his shoulders, fighting the laces free at his throat, stripping tunic and shirt off his chest, baring his skin to her nails. _And mine_. She breaks from his kiss as he jostles her in his arms and she nips his throat with her teeth, her nails leaving red marks on his neck and shoulders. He groans and finds her heat with his hand again, thumbing her folds, sliding a finger inside her and stretching, stroking, stoking her. She whines in his ear and jacks her hips up against his hand. His forehead butts against hers as she lifts her teeth from his neck and meets his violent kiss, tastes blood and fire and spice and heat. He breathes hard through his nose and drinks deep her eyes.

“I am furious, Nell,” he says, his voice thick and hard. “With you, with Catelyn, with Littlefinger, with this whole stinking city.” He withdraws his hand sharply, his fingers soaking with her scent, ripping the gown from her body and brushing her wrist as she yanks at his belt. “With myself.”

“I know,” she purrs against his mouth. She pushes his breeches down over his hips. “I know, my lord.” She raises herself, her cunt pressing hot and wet on his belly, her hands finding purchase on his shoulders, in his hair. “Now fuck me, Ned, fuck me and forget your fury.” She pulls his head back with her grip on his hair and bites her lower lip, lowering her hips, smiling with narrowed brows and lust-drunk eyes. “ _Please_.”

He enters her hard and presses her, groaning, up against the wall. He’s close and hot and suffocating, his chest pinning her to the wall, his legs planted apart and jacking his hips up to crush against hers. She’s moaning. His beard is scratching up her neck, his teeth are flowering the soft skin of her throat with licks and kisses and nips. She grips his shoulder and neck and pulls him close and pushes him away and pulls him toward her again. He’s moving too hard, too fast, but she’s whimpering in a good way and the stretch of her thighs and bursting ribs hold a good ache.

“Gods, Nell,” he growls against her neck. “I want you here and I want you home safe all at once.” His hand tangles in her hair and yanks her head back, his mouth moving up to brush at her jaw, her cheek, her chin. She looks down at his face with half-closed eyes and a moan rattles past her teeth. “When I saw you, gods, when I saw you…”

“Your eyes were black and cold when you saw me,” she murmurs, and she rolls her hips and arches her breasts into his chest and whines as he presses deep and hard inside her. “I thought you hated me for being there.”

Ned jerks on her hair again and he catches her bottom lip with his teeth. “I _wanted_ you, Nell,” he seethes, his eyes flame and hunger in the half-light. “When I saw you in that room I wanted nothing more than to take you right there in front of them all.” His pace is hard and fast and ruthless; she is growing boneless in the vice of his arms, her hips rolling and quaking and dipping to keep up with his thrusts. He bites her neck again, gives a low rumble in his throat. “I saw your legs shifting under your gown, Nellie, and I knew how wet you’d be, I could sense it. I wanted you in my mouth, I wanted you in my hands.” He looks deep into her eyes now and sees his own panic and desire and frenzy and fury reflected in their storm-blue depths. “I wanted to be inside – I _ached_ to be inside you, Nell.”

“You saw true, my lord,” hisses Nell, pushing back the damp hair from his brow, her mouth a soft moan of beckoning closure. “I saw your hands and hips swaying down the Street of Silk and I wanted you inside me.” She grits her teeth and pulls hard at his hair, climbing higher and higher on his cock, bursts of pleasure bleeding into her belly. “Even with your lady wife at my shoulder and Ser Rodrik at my back.” A moan rips like a snarl from her throat. “I was so wet, Ned, oh gods, I was so _ready_ for you.” She catches his jaw in her hand now and digs her nails into his beard, biting her lip to hear his grunt of pain as she tears down to his skin. “And then you looked at me with eyes black as death and my heart died along with my heat.”

“Nell - ”

But she cuts him with her nails and pushes her thumb to his lips to silence him. “Never look at me with lord’s eyes again, Ned.” Her voice is quiet and shivering with fire; she stares at him heavy-lidded and he shudders to feel her liquid heat clamping hard on his cock. “I can bear anything else, my love, anything – but those lord’s eyes... they make me feel as if I died in the sea that day.”

“My love, I – ”

“Don’t you dare apologise,” she whimpers, her arms winding tight around his neck, her forehead flush against his. “Just keep fucking me, my lord.” His rhythm speeds up, gets harder, deeper, and she is thrown jagged by the stone wall at her back, her muscles aching, her thighs sore, the marks from his teeth stinging on her throat. But the clouds in her belly are boiling in her blood now and she feels drunk on lust, on spikes of pleasure that drown her brain and blur her eyes. “Just keep fucking me.” Her voice is ragged and broken and feral. “Don’t stop, Ned, don’t you dare stop.” She buries her face in his shoulder and tastes the salt of his skin. “Gods, oh gods, don’t you _dare_ \- ”

His lips tangle with hers, his tongue slips across her lips to silence her, before his mouth passes over her cheek and bites her earlobe. The noises he’s making cloud her with lust. Groaning, garbling her name and cursing, his voice strange and vulnerable and warm. It makes her ache for him even more, makes her legs go up around his broad back and her back arch and her belly press up against his and her mouth drop open, parting his lips on hers, as she cries out and comes and clenches madly around his cock. It shakes her like a wave, makes her blood boil and crash through her veins and course to her cheeks and throat and breast and heart. She moans again as he moves inside her, even faster this time, chasing his own finish. And she can’t stop moaning now, her breath panting and whining and filling the room alongside his sounds and words and he responds, harder, harder and – there it is, there it is.

They cling to each other for an age. Ned buries his face in her dark hair and breathes deep her scent: that heady perfume of scented oil, flowers and sweetness that is Nell’s and Nell’s alone. He thinks of home then and clutches her a little tighter.

“Are you happy to see me?” whispers Nell, her voice muffled by his throat.

Ned pulls her head back, gently this time, and strokes her cheek with his thumb. He smiles softly then, and it is her Ned gazing down at her once more, his eyes deep and round with love.

“I am the happiest.” He rubs his nose against hers. “The weeks have passed in a sour haze. It is hot and close in this place – but the heat doesn’t make me half as mad as the small council, bickering and jesting, always talking yet never saying a damn thing.” He feels her fingers clutching at his back now and rests his forehead to her own, his breath a shiver on her skin. “Gods, I’ve missed you, Nell. I’ve reached for you so many nights only to find my bed bare and cold. I’ve looked for your bright eyes every time I break my fast. Now you are here and I don’t quite believe it.”

She lifts her small hands to cup his face, stroking the smooth beard, her eyes blue-black and glossy on his. She presses a kiss quick and quiet as a snowflake to his lips and he thinks of Winterfell then, of ice and snow and breath as smoke and red-gold leaves in the godswood. He shudders at the thought and kisses her again.

“Believe it, my love,” she murmurs into his mouth. “I am here – and you are home.”


	11. Head, Heart and Help

Ned makes his way to the small council chamber with blood in his beard. The scratches left by Nell’s nails and teeth sting like half a hundred pinpricks beneath the collar of his doublet, rubbing raw against the soft silk with each step he takes. He would wince – but the pain is still masked by the thick smoke of pleasure. The rain stopped shortly before dawn and he walks in bright sunshine now, passing by the small hall and crossing the outer yard toward the low building of muted red stone leaning against the castle walls.

The chamber is lit by golden light spilling in through its gilded windows. Low-ceilinged, it is panelled with dark wood with friezes of gold and silver flecking its walls. Myrish rugs cover the dark floor in cherry and crimson hues. A stout table takes up most of its length, flanked by red-covered chairs and a hardwood throne piled with wine-dark cushions at its head. There the small council sits. Ned takes his seat without glancing at any of them, but he sees them all: quick-eyed Littlefinger drumming a pen against a haphazard accounts book, Renly Baratheon splendid in emerald velvet with that easy smile of his, Grand Maester Pycelle half-asleep in his great white beard, the pallid ghost of Ser Barristan Selmy in his Kingsguard armour and cloak, and there at the corner plump and powdered and smelling of lilacs and lavender sits Lord Varys, soft hands folded placidly in his lap.

“My lords,” says Ned, his voice cool and formal. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting.” _Nell’s hands saw to that_ , he thinks warmly, _reaching for me in the dawn as mine reached for her_.

“You are the King’s Hand,” says Varys smoothly. “We serve at your pleasure, Lord Stark.”

Soon the rich red chamber is humming with sound: voices rolling figures and debts and matters to discuss, wine and water trickling into plated cups, soft-soled boots drumming with impatience on the Myrish rugs underfoot. Ned sits throughout, his brow growing heavier as the sun climbs high in the sky without and the smoke of pleasure so thick and all-consuming a few hours ago slips slowly away from him. His body feels heavy and sore now, his eyes ache, his ears ring, the scratches on his neck are sharp as knives. He grits his teeth and tries to think of soft scent and liquid heat, of cool kisses and low whines in his ear. He shudders then.

“My lord, are you well?” comes Littlefinger’s voice, quick and silver as his eyes.

Ned meets his look and inclines his head. “Well enough, Lord Baelish.” He indicates the curling scrolls cluttering the table. “Save for this needless beggaring of the realm.”

Littlefinger smiles. “I have pulled strings and cut purses, Lord Stark,” he says. “The coin has pooled together nicely and plans for your tourney are well underway – whether you want it or not. We _all_ serve at the king’s pleasure.”

“You speak true,” replies Ned. “But the expense – ”

“What are a hundred thousand gold pieces compared to the happiness such a tourney will bring to lords and lowly folk alike?” Littlefinger dips his head, eyes gleaming. “I am sure your daughters will find it a day of sunshine and smiles… their handmaid, too.”

 _Flatterers and fools_ , Ned thinks hotly, _firebrands looking always for folly and stoking the flames of intrigue… would that they could drown in the smoke they create_. He cocks his head to the side, keeps his eyes cool even as his temper flares. He sees Varys sit up a little straighter in his corner of shadows and the gilded light of the windows catches his glittering gaze; the soft hands twist a little in his lap. _No doubt the Spider will send a little bird to scout my tower come eve – if there isn’t one snug in my nest already_ …

Ned bows his head, hiding the fire burning the frown deeper on his face. “Sunshine and smiles,” he says, his voice low and cool. “As you say, my lord.”

ლ

Nell is sat between Arya Stark and Septa Mordane on one of the trestle tables lining the small hall, watching as servants swoop down like hungry birds and bear away the seeds of the first course: a thick soup made with pumpkins and sweet cream. The hall is made to seat two hundred at its long benches of ashwood; they make a household a little over fifty. The fading sunlight chases shadows across bare space and empty seats whilst a dozen faint voices echo hugely against the high-vaulted ceiling. Nell turns her gaze to Arya’s small dark head and sets her voice soft and low.

“I was sorry to hear of how your journey south ended,” says Nell. “You must be hurting deeply, little one.”

Arya looks up at her. “He was my _friend_ ,” she whispers. “They ran him down and hung him on a horse like a dead deer.” She blinks furiously, rubs her cheeks with a fist. “I saw them do it where I hid in the trees… and then I chased Nymeria away with stones and shouts and sticks. I miss her, Nellie, I miss her and Mycah something awful.” She sets her jaw then and looks a copy of her father. “I hate it here and I hate my stupid sister, too.”

Nell opens her mouth to speak just as the doors to the small hall are thrown open and Ned strides in, the grey wool cloak swirling around him like a storm. His face is dark and tense and he stalks lean and lithe as a wolf to his seat at the trestle table. His household guards stand in a flurry of grey-and-white cloaks and beaten silver hand-pins and state their greeting. He nods at them.

“Be seated,” he says. “I see you have started without me. I am pleased to know there are still some men of sense in this city.”

“He is _always_ late now,” says Arya beneath her breath as the servants resume their ferrying of plates and platters. “And his face is forever angry.” She glances up at Nell now with dark solemn eyes. “I saw scratches on his neck this morrow – do they fight with hands as well as words in the small council, Nell?”

Nell feels heat and shame colour her cheeks, but she smiles warmly at Arya’s sleek dark head. “No, little one,” she says softly. “Though I think they would be much happier if they could punch and parry as boys in the bailey.” And Arya gives a little laugh and turns back to her plate.

 _Whore and harlot and heathen, that is all you are, Nell Northwood_ …

“The talk in the yard is that we shall have a tourney, my lord,” says Jory Cassel, glancing up at his lord. “They say that knights will come from all over the realm to joust and feast in honour of your appointment as Hand of the King.”

Ned’s face grows darker. “Do they also say this is the last thing in the world I would have wished?”

“A _tourney_ ,” comes Sansa’s breathy voice from where she sits between the septa and Jeyne Poole. She is radiant in primrose silk, her red-gold hair shining in the half-light of the setting sun; dark-haired Jeyne has eyes wide as saucers and trembles with excitement. “Will we be permitted to go, Father?”

Ned’s voice is flat and cold. “You know my feelings, Sansa. It seems I must arrange Robert’s games and pretend to be honoured for his sake. That does not mean I must subject my daughters to this folly.”

But Sansa pleads and Septa Mordane says true that it would be queer for the Hand’s own household to be absent at a tourney held in his honour. Ned looks pained and impatient, glancing between his two daughters.

“Very well,” he says. “I shall arrange a place for both of you.”

Nell feels Arya shake at her side. “I don’t care about their stupid tourney,” she says, venom curling in her tone.

Sansa raises her head as if she is queen already and Nell sees the colder light of Catelyn tarry in her blue Tully eyes. “It will be a _splendid_ event. You shan’t be wanted.”

Quick as thunder, anger flashes across Ned’s face. “ _Enough_ , Sansa. More of that and you will change my mind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expect you to behave like sisters, is that understood?”

They both look as though they will cry. Sansa bites her lip and curls her fingers tight around her cup. Arya stares sullenly at her plate and rubs angrily at her eyes. The ashwood bench is a sea of downcast faces and studious eating, the hall clattering with the din of knives and cups and plates.

Nell is the only one with her eyes lifted from her lap and she seeks Ned’s at the head of the table. He pushes his plate away and meets her stare reluctantly. The cold black glare he shot at Sansa dissolves instantly.

 _Lord’s eyes become lover’s gaze_ , thinks Nell, _full of hurt and storm_. His jaw is still set hard and his brow is heavy, but she sees the need for comfort shine true in those damp grey eyes even as his teeth grind and his heart stubbornly fights against it. He tears himself from her gaze and rises from his seat.

“Pray excuse me,” he announces to the table. “I find I have small appetite tonight.” He walks swiftly from the hall.

Sansa and Jeyne fall to whispering excitedly as soon as he is gone. Jory and the others fill their cups and begin earnest discussions about horseflesh and lances and shields. Everyone is swept away by talk of the tourney, all except Arya. She sits staring at her plate, her face pale and drawn and sad.

“Arya?” says Nell softly.

“He was my _friend_ ,” whispers Arya, pushing away from the table.

“Little one – ”

“Pray, where do you think you are going, young lady?” asks Septa Mordane, her voice whip-thin and cutting through the air like a knife.

Nell watches as Arya chews her lip and bobs her head. “I’m not hungry,” she says quietly. “May I be excused, please?”

“The child looks in need of rest,” interjects Nell gently, turning her eyes to the old woman. “She is – ”

“You may not,” says the septa, cutting across Nell’s soft voice. Nell hates her with all of Arya’s grief and fury in that moment. “You have scarcely touched your food. You will sit down and clean your plate.”

“You clean it!” shouts Arya and she bolts from the room amidst the sound of men laughing and the septa’s voice climbing higher and higher.

Nell whirls on the septa then, her eyes bright with venom. “She needs soft words and a patient ear to hear her hurts,” says Nell, her voice thin. “She doesn’t need scolding before all her father’s household and made to feel the size of a new-born kit.”

Septa Mordane regards Nell with ice in her eyes. “What that insolent young lady needs is whatever her septa deems best,” she declares coldly. “Keep to what you are good at: lacing gowns and combing hair and mending skirts and kirtles. You are a _handmaid_ , Elenore Northwood.” She flicks her eyes up and down Nell’s face. “Handmaids have no place in the rearing of noble children. Remember that.”

ლ

Nell finds Ned in his solar, sitting in a high-backed chair and brooding out over the darkening city. He raises his head when he hears the door open and close and watches her as she steps toward him. His eyes light and darken all at once as the torches spill flame and shadow on her, limning her body wrapped in soft smoke-coloured silk, shining her black hair to gold.

“My lord,” she says, approaching him and giving him a curtsey. “You have left quite the storm in the small hall. One of your daughters is as yappy as a hound at its first hunt – the other has fled to her bedchamber where Septa Mordane threatens to break down the door.” He tilts his head as she speaks and she holds her breath, expecting dismissal. Instead he extends his hand. She steps up to his chair and takes it. His fingers hold hers lightly in his grip as his other hand whispers along her silk-covered ribs.

“I’ve never seen you in such dainty things,” he says, his voice low and warm. “You are like some apparition, some pretty spirit escaped from the godswood and sent to drive men mad.” Her little hand rises and rests on his cheek. He closes his eyes at that, a sigh of longing escaping his lips, but then he rises, and their hands drop like burning brands from each other. “We must be careful here, sweetling. There are eyes in every crack between the stones, whispers escaping every window. We are not in Winterfell anymore.”

They turn to stare out of the golden window, but their eyes do not leave each other’s. Nell runs her fingers across the top of a red mark showing above the collar of his doublet. “Have no fear, my lord,” she murmurs, her eyes bright. “If anyone happened to look in on us last night they would have seen only wolves clawing out each other’s throats.”

Ned gives a low chuckle, but his eyes are burning. “The bloodlust was on me strong and thick as smoke last night,” he says softly, his hand stroking back a strand of dark hair from her cheek, his fingers straying quickly to a ring of marks his teeth have left hidden beneath her ear. “I am sorry if I hurt you, my love.”

“My blood was up as much as yours,” she replies, taking his hand from her throat and weaving it with her own. “Your soul answered the call of my own – we had no choice in any of it.” She lifts his hand to her mouth, presses a kiss to his knuckles, and drowns in the heady look glittering his eyes. “My head is clear now and my heart is happy. I will make it so for you as well.”

“I know you will,” murmurs Ned, love heavy in his heart and clouding his head. He ignores his own warning and steals a kiss from her, his mouth drinking the taste of hers desperately. “And I need all three of what you offer, my love: head and heart and help.” He draws back from her lips and stares through the glass. “The Hand of the King is expected to rule the Seven Kingdoms, yet it seems I cannot even rule my own household.”

“All three are gladly yours, my love,” says Nell, drawing his face back to hers. “Now leave your solar and set things right with Arya, sooth her grief and listen to her hurts.” She smiles her soft little smile. “Step by step, we will make sense of this mess of heated blood and fury.”

Ned looks full at her and leans his forehead against her own. “Do you promise, Nell?” he asks, and his voice is warm and vulnerable as his eyes and moans in naked bed.

She kisses him softly. “I promise, Ned.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB** : this chapter lifts setting and speech from a scene I wanted to flesh out in _A Game of Thrones_ (Chapter 22: Arya II). It's high time Lord Stark had some honest help in King's Landing, after all...


	12. Chasing Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

A warm dawn breaks over the Red Keep, spilling sunlight through the canopy of its godswood and limning the sleeping faces of the girls in a red-gold glow. Ned has kept vigil through the night, kneeling before the great heart tree of oak, whispering his prayers and giving his thanks. The girls knelt with him long as they could, but sleep took them soon after midnight and Nell sang them soft lullabies that swept them into dreams.

She looks down at Arya and Sansa now where they curl into their cloaks amongst fallen leaves and crimson drifts of dragon’s breath. _So sweet, so innocent_ , she thinks, _I would sink any heat that hurt them, truly I would_. Lady Catelyn’s face simmers before her eyes like smoke then, but it rises just as quickly and disappears through the leaves overhead. The girls stay soundly sleeping as Nell disentangles herself and steps to where their lord father kneels before the heart tree. She sinks down beside him, looking up at the great oak with its wisps of smokeberry vines and wraiths of falling leaves.

“He will never lie with a woman,” says Ned, his voice quiet. “He will never father sons and watch them grow into lords and knights.”

Nell keeps her eyes on the heart tree. “Only the gods know what Bran will become,” she says gently. “A month ago he slept bruised and broken without any sign he’d ever wake.” She finds Ned’s hand beneath the fold of his cloak and grips it tight. “Now his eyes are open… who knows what will be ten years hence?” She runs her thumb over his knuckles. “The gods watch over him, Ned, with a stare as steadfast as your vigil here before their heart tree.”

He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. “The gods are good, Nell Northwood,” he says. “They kept you home through that night of smoke and blood and now they have brought you here to me. It seems they know your place better than any lord or lady… mayhap not the septa though.”

Their eyes meet then in a flash of laughter.

“I fear Septa Mordane would never allow me to forget my place,” says Nell, her face split by a smile. “Though she must never have seen my kerchiefs if she thinks I belong at needlework and knitting.”

“The septa has a cold face but a good heart,” says Ned. “The eve before last I even saw a tear on her cheek.” He smiles at her. “Your song at supper must’ve woken up her well of sorrow.”

“Mayhap I’ll sing one of the bawdy sailor’s songs Arya loves so much next time,” says Nell with mischief in her eyes. “That might strike at another of the septa’s wells.”

Ned throws his head back at that and laughs. _Such a beautiful sound_ , thinks Nell with a wide smile, _a rare and beautiful sound_. She looks at him as he laughs in the dawn light and loves him fiercer than ever. _Would that the people who call him black-hearted and ice-blooded could see him now as I see him: a simple man laughing about a septa’s cunt_ … She laughs now too, a soft chuckle spiralling to the canopy of oak and ash and blackwood above. She thinks of the past days as their quiet laughter fades into the leaves and her heart lifts a little in gladness to realise life here has found something of a rhythm. _Songs at supper, an end to the sisters’ war, cool kisses come dawn, and a broken boy at last awake_ …

“I make for the maester’s rooms this morrow,” says Ned, his voice low. “His was the hand that tended Jon Arryn during sickness and closed his eyes in death.” His brow furrows and quick as a storm his laughter is forgotten. “Pycelle plays at being old and half-asleep, but his eyes and wits are sharp as ever.”

“Go careful, my lord,” says Nell softly. “It is impossible to tell who these southron lords and lackeys truly serve – they each play their part so well.”

They rise together from the leaf mould and clinging vines and turn to face one another. Ned glances to where the girls still sleep sound in their cloaks before he lowers his face and rests his forehead to Nell’s.

“I’ll go careful, my love,” he promises quietly. “Soon enough I’ll learn my lines as well as any of the lords who strut the stage of king and court.” He presses a kiss to her cheek and turns to the path threading its way out of the godswood.

ლ

The sun is high in the sky and burning hot and harsh where Nell sits in the shade of the Tower of the Hand. She wears a thin silk gown with her hair bound up atop her head, but her blood is boiling, colouring her cheeks and making the silk stick to the small of her back. She shifts on the stone steps and kicks her slippers off, stretching her toes languorously in the hot heavy air. Out in the full glare of the sun, Arya stands on one leg in the middle bailey, swaying and staggering and righting herself repeatedly. Nell watches her with a smile on her face to see the child frowning hard in concentration, arms waving furiously to keep balance.

“As watchful in burning sun as you are in falling snow,” comes a voice from behind her. “Cat must be so pleased to have such a faithful handmaid.”

Nell turns her head to see Littlefinger approaching, the sun gleaming on the silver streak in his dark hair. He wears a soft charcoal tunic, a bird in flight stitched in silver thread across his breast. _A mockingbird flitting alive as rain in some silver light_ … Nell stares at it, puzzled.

“Pray, tell me,” says Littlefinger, cutting through her puzzlement. “What is young Arya doing in the bailey?”

“She calls it the water dance,” replies Nell, all thoughts of wings and rain and silver light slipping from her mind. “Something her new dance master is teaching her.”

Littlefinger raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Ah,” he says, as if everything is now obvious. “She would not prefer to be sipping iced milk and stitching kerchiefs with her sister in the small hall?”

“Observant, aren’t you?” says Nell before she can bridle her tongue. “I thought it was Lord Varys who sat proud amongst his web of whispers.”

A chuckle lifts from Littlefinger’s lips at that, but it does not touch his eyes. They dart like silver fish up to her face.

“You would be hard pressed to find a man in the Red Keep who _didn’t_ know where Joffrey’s betrothed was at all times,” he says, his voice edged with something far removed from the laughter on his lips. “And me? I look at her as Cat’s own self, with her flames for hair and sapphires for eyes… I would never want to see harm done to her.”

Nell stares at him, her heart loud in her ears.

“No harm will come to her,” she says, her voice cool, her eyes hot. “Not whilst I am her handmaid, Lord Baelish.”

Littlefinger bows his head, eyes glimmering. “I am pleased to hear it, Lady Northwood,” he says. “A faithful handmaid you are, true. Lord Stark must count his blessings that his lady wife saw fit to ship you down to King’s Landing.” He looks at her, a half-smile quirked on his lips. “Was he as happy as I said he’d be to have another homely face in his lonely keep?”

Nell thinks of their first night back together then. _I want you here and I want you home safe all at once_ … Unbidden the sight of Ned’s face growling words against her mouth swims before her eyes, the sound of him groaning onto her throat, the feel of him stretching her thighs wide apart and making her cunt ache… Her cheeks colour now and she shifts on the stone steps, fighting to come down to a more tolerable hue. She dips her head.

“He was happy enough to accept his lady wife’s wisdom,” Nell says carefully.

“Wisdom, hmm.” Littlefinger’s eyes look at her full and it is as though he has stripped past flesh and bone and blood to see within her soul. “Cat is many things. She is loyal and fierce and clever, but wise? I dare say something as obvious as sunlight could pass her by without her seeing the shadows it leaves in the dust.” He cocks his head and strokes his pointed beard. “She always was a dreamer with her head in that three-sided cloud of family, duty and honour.” He takes half a step toward Nell and the shadow of the tower dapples the sunlight on his smiling cheeks. “She saw everything through that hazy lens, Lady Northwood, but it only served to make her blind.”

Nell feels chill suddenly in the heat of the afternoon, but she raises her chin and stares at Littlefinger.

“Blind to what, Lord Baelish?”

He shrugs. “To lovesick young boys, to fathers bartering betrothals like selling so many cattle to market… to sisters moaning lusty words in the shadows.” His voice is casual, his eyes quick. “She flew high in her three-sided cloud and never swooped to look at the dust and dirt. She never learned that beneath the beauty of a thing hides its brutality and its baseness.” He cocks his head to the side. “I wonder if the years have changed her. Does she see both sunlight _and_ shadow now?” His teeth show in a white smile. “Tell me, Lady Northwood, when Cat gazes full at you, what does she see?”

Nell narrows her eyes at him. “She sees only what there is to see: a faithful handmaid with iron and ice in her veins.”

A little chuckle escapes Littlefinger’s lips but his eyes are dark. “And Lord Stark?” he asks, his voice cool and innocent. “What does Lord Stark see when he looks at you, I wonder?”

“What does any man see when he looks at me?” rejoins Nell, her voice a challenge.

Littlefinger stays staring at her with his head on one side, his thumb smoothing his pointed beard, his eyes gleaming in thought. “A dark beauty and a bright mind to counter it,” he says coolly. “The poise of a queen and the body of a beautiful whore.” His eyes sweep her up and down. “And you know well how to hold each and every up as shield and sword to serve you.” He smiles his merry little smile. “I am not as blind as dear Cat. I see strong as day the effect you’ve had on Lord Stark’s lonely little keep. Before you came all was chaos and disarray – sisters fighting, stormy brows, strong words and clumsy choices… now all is changed.” His eyes leap with light. “You make the man walk as fearsome as a wolf about the Red Keep.”

Nell feels danger squeeze her heart and fights her face to smile thinly at Littlefinger. “I am only a handmaid of the salt winds,” she says softly. “Sworn to serve House Stark with the grace and courage the gods see fit to give me.”

She looks up past Littlefinger and sees Ned in the distance. She watches his shoulders dipping as he sways down the serpentine steps with a footfall true and full of purpose as a warrior.

 _Littlefinger speaks true_ , she thinks, _he is a wild wolf now scattering sheep before him_.

Ned begins to cross the middle bailey and as he strides past guardsmen playing at swords he makes them look boys battling with sticks; he fills the courtyard, the keep, the city with shoulders and shadows and storm-grey eyes.

 _Wild, wild wolf… and mine_.

“You see?” says Littlefinger softly, his eyes falling where Nell’s rest on Ned bending his head to talk with Arya. “The fearful becomes the feared.” He meets Nell’s gaze now and the smile touches his eyes at last, cold and cautious and cruel. “All thanks to his lady wife’s faithful handmaid.” He bows his head. “Pray tell your lord I await him in his solar.” He fades from the shadow of the tower and slips up its steps sleek as smoke, leaving a fire burning quietly in his wake.

ლ

Later when the moon has chased the sun from the sky, Nell slips as a shadow up the stone steps winding to the top of the tower and steps into the Hand’s bedchamber, the latch sliding shut soundlessly behind her. Ned is sat in the glow of half a dozen candles, a book the size of an ironwood chest spread on the desk before him. He looks up as she steps into view, his finger marking his place on the yellow page, the candleflame hazing his face in shadow and light.

Nell steps around the desk and leans down over his shoulder, her eyes lighting on the corner of the page.

“ _The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children_ ,” reads Nell, taking on a plummy little southern accent. Ned smiles at that; she raises her eyebrows at him and steps back round to the front of the desk. “What noble house are you plotting the ruin of, my lord? Do you seek the lands of a twice-removed bastard son of lord and whore?” Her eyes glitter with laughter in the candlelight.

Ned chuckles and pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “The final book Jon Arryn read before he died,” he says nonchalantly. “I thought it might… oh I don’t know what I thought or think.” He looks up at her now, a crooked smile on his lips, but his eyes are flat and dark with hunger. He reaches out to her across the desk. “Come to me.”

Nell tilts her head, thinking of mockingbirds and silver-eyed lords speaking sweet warnings. “I cannot.”

“Do you play games with me?” asks Ned, his voice dripping dark and smoky. “After a day spent chasing secrets, I am in no mood for games.” His eyes flash on hers, the smile a cool crooked challenge. “Believe me, Nell.”

She gives a small smile at that. “I play no games, my lord.”

He raps his palm against the desk. “Then come to me, damn you.” His voice is a growled command. “ _Now_ , Nell.”

“There are eyes in every crack between the stones, whispers escaping every window,” she says softly. “And silver-tongued lords who whisper warnings in daylight.”

Ned’s eyes leap at that. “Littlefinger?”

Nell nods. “He says you have become a wolf in the weeks I’ve been here.” Her voice is sweet and smooth. “He speaks true. You stare at me wild as a wolf tonight.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Don’t pretend at being cool and calm as still water.” He looks from her face to her shifting skirts. “I know the heat growing between your legs, Nell Northwood.” She bites her lip and sees his eyes flare. “Now come to me.”

She does as she is bid this time, sinking onto his lap, her arms resting on his shoulders, the hardwood desk biting into her back. She trails a hand through his dark hair, smooths it down against the nape of his neck and feels her hips churn at the drunk look that slips across his eyes. He begins to pull the ribbons of her bodice free. She watches him, her fingers winding into his hair, her teeth worrying her lip. He looks up as he splits her bodice and sees the worry on her face. She dips her eyes away.

“My love,” he says, his voice deep and warm now. “Nell, look at me.”

He straightens her face with his hand and draws her close, rubs his nose against hers and takes her lips in a soft kiss. She gives a little whimper and clutches at his shoulders.

“What if he knows, Ned?” she murmurs into his neck. “My love, what if he _knows_?”

Ned leans her back against the hardwood desk without word. She tips back her head with a sigh as his great hands run from her throat to her belly, pulling the laces of her shift loose and baring her breasts to the golden light of the candles. He trips his fingers between the valley of them, pulling gently on the shiny wolf’s head dangling from its silver chain, and then he dips his head and lays soft kisses where his hands have just tread. She clutches at his hair and rubs at his ears as his mouth closes on her nipple, suckling it gently and leaving it warm and wet and stiff to move his mouth to the other. She moans with relief and her thighs squirm where they rest split across his lap. He lifts his face and pulls her to him with his grip on her silver chain. She rolls boneless back against him, her eyes hazy with heat. He kisses her throat and pushes her skirts up around her hips, his fingers trailing hot as fire up along her thigh.

“All day I have been chasing secrets, my love.” Ned’s voice is dark smoke as his hand sweeps aside her shift. “All day I have been thinking of you as you are now.” She soaks his palm with her scent; he slips a finger inside her and rolls her with his thumb. She clasps his neck and gazes at him heavy-lidded. “If any lord with a silver tongue dares to come between me and _this_ …” he growls and strokes his fingers hard inside her. “Well, then, my love, he will find out just what a wild wolf I have become these past weeks.”

A thrill of hot fear blooms in her blood as he speaks. She comes ferociously; her thighs close hard around his hand and she feels herself gush and clench against his fingers as her body climbs up to wrap itself tight around him. He rocks her with thumb and fingers, letting her ride out her pleasure as she twines herself around him like ivy, and he lands a nip on her throat when she tilts back her head and moans softly, her breath guttering out half the candles on the desk.

“Wild wolf,” she whispers hoarsely after a moment. She lifts her face in a dream and levels it with his, her hands pulling at his belt and circling his cock. “Wild, wild wolf.” Their lips meet in a vicious kiss; he thrusts up inside her and fire burns in their eyes. She moves on him, takes him deep, feels his frown of pleasure flicker against her throat, pulls him back by his hair and takes his tongue into her mouth, whimpering. “And _mine_.”


	13. Words of Storm

The bedchamber is a sea of colour. Gowns of silk and velvet and damask spill across the bed in half a hundred shades: violet and lavender, plum, peach, indigo and sapphire. Slippers of soft tooled leather litter the floor amidst satin ribbons and strips of Myrish lace. Sansa Stark stands amongst it all in her thin shift, hands on her hips, hair red as flame still bound in the unravelling plait she slept in. She plucks at the bodices and sleeves and kirtles offered up by Jeyne Poole who sits at her feet. Frowning, she swiftly throws them back and stares at herself in the tall looking glass.

“ _Nell_ ,” she whines eventually, turning to where the handmaid sits amongst the sea of silk on the bed. “What am I to do?”

“About what, my heart?” asks Nell gently.

“About _this_ ,” says Sansa, throwing her hands wide and glaring at the mess of skirts and slippers. “I look ugly as a suckling pig in satin. My hair clashes and my chest is too small and my hips too narrow.” Her face is twisted with despair. “I want the prince to find me pretty, Nell. If I wear any of these _things_ , I’ll make Joff turn pale as sour milk.”

Nell tuts and rises from the bed, stepping in a wave of fallen silk sleeves and skirts over to Sansa. She turns her gently by the shoulders to look into the looking glass again. Sansa stares at her reflection sullenly as Nell works loose the red-gold hair and smooths it down her back.

“You will be a queen, Sansa Stark,” says Nell, straightening the girl’s shoulders and raising her chin. “Men will look at you with hunger in their eyes and desire in their hearts. And who can blame them?” _Flames for hair and sapphires for eyes_. Nell sees Littlefinger’s quick cool eyes staring hungrily at Sansa in the looking glass and fights the urge to smash a fist through his shifting face before it disappears. “These wisps of silk and bolts of lace will be to you what steel and plate are to a knight.” She meets Sansa’s eyes in the mirror. “Armour.”

Nell turns back to the bed and sifts her way through the slippery pile of fine fabric, losing sight of her hands beneath waves of azure silk and lilac velvet. Jeyne and Sansa watch her work, glancing at each other uncertainly as the handmaid lifts gowns and lays them down again, her quick black brows flickering in concentration.

“Tell me, girls,” says Nell to the pair of them as she keeps eyes and hands busy on the sea of silk. “Who do you think has paid for all these gowns spilling like water on your bed?”

Jeyne and Sansa glance at each other again; dark eyes quizzing Tully blue.

“Lord Stark?” ventures Jeyne.

Nell gives a little chuckle. “Sansa, tell me true, would your lord father ever take good silver from Winterfell’s stores to splurge on half a hundred gowns for you to wrinkle your nose up at and throw aside?” She turns from the bed at last, her cheeks rosy from her work, and steps toward them with a bundle of silk and satin in her arms. “Would he?”

Sansa shakes her head.

“All this,” says Nell softly, indicating the mess of slippers and silks and skeins of lace. “All this has been sent to you by folk who seek your favour, by lords who want to buy your love and remind you of it when you are queen.” She looks into the Tully blue eyes. “They want to point you out in the tourney stands and whisper to their neighbours that you wear their colours or their cut of silk.” She holds up the dress she grips and sets it against Sansa’s shoulders. “So you must choose your armour carefully, my heart.”

Nell laces Sansa into a gown of rosewood silk whilst the girl stares silently at herself in the looking glass. The neckline is low and square with swirls of fabric set in the shape of roses and sewn all around it. Gold thread picks out the trailing vines of leaf and ivy that lead to the snarling heads of silver-god direwolves sitting at the fabric over her hips. The sleeves are cloth-of-gold and as draped and folded as a maester’s, half-covering her slender white hands. A wolf’s head set in gold and moonstone hangs on a chain around her neck.

“Silver for your house,” whispers Nell, running her hand from the chain to the direwolves crouching at her sides. “Gold for a new alliance… and roses for the lord that sent you such a splendid gift.”

Sansa’s eyes grow round and wide. “House _Tyrell_ – they… I…”

“You move in wide and shifting circles now, my heart,” says Nell, smoothing the red-gold hair to spill across the gown of rose and gold and silver. “Choose your armour well and wear it with the pride and honour your lady mother taught you… and the lords will come to you, Sansa Stark.” She meets her eyes in the looking glass. _Flames for hair and sapphires for eyes_. “They will come to you and lay gifts and pretty words at your feet, but it is your choice whose gifts you accept and whose words you work on. Remember that, dear heart, remember that.”

ლ

 _The girls are well and goodly_ , writes Nell, _they go about their lessons with care and attention and perform their duties with grace and contentment_ … She puts down the pen, frowns at the thick paper marked with the direwolf of House Stark and picks it up again. _Arya learns her dancing steps and Sansa is excited beyond all measure for the tourney in honour of her lord father. She tells me a thousand times a day the names of the knights she thinks will win and teaches me their sigils and symbols and colours. They do well truly, my lady, and seem to enjoy their life here amongst the southern hills_.

“What are you writing?” comes a deep voice from across the godswood.

Nell starts and gives a shout, the pen wobbling in her fingers and leaving a blot of ink bleeding long and low as the hills she was describing. Her eyes flash up to see Ned slipping toward her through the thatch of elm and alder and black cottonwood, his footfall soundless on the thick carpet of dark leaves and curling patches of dragon’s breath.

“Take that stupid smile off your face, Eddard Stark,” says Nell, glaring at him. “Creeping up on a young lady as a wolf would a lamb.” She narrows her eyes, a smile pulling reluctantly across her lips. “You ought be ashamed.”

“A thousand pardons, my lady,” says Ned, smiling still. “I have been all afternoon at the Street of Steel. My head rings with the sound of anvils and hammers.” He sits beside her beneath the heart tree of oak and tips his head back against the bark. “I wanted some quiet amongst the leaves.”

“Did you find your armourer?” asks Nell, setting the pen down on the letter in her lap to turn her attention to him. Ned sits with his eyes closed, the sunlight catching on the chain of clasped hands about his neck, burning gold and fierce.

“I did,” he says with a sigh. “I found a king’s bastard, too, working in a barn of bellows and forges. He’d a fine helm on his bench, seemed very attached to it.”

Ned opens his eyes and meets Nell’s narrowed gaze.

“Is there any corner of the city free of Robert’s seed?” says Nell, her fine black brows creasing. “Seems he spreads it as thickly as an old crone feeding her flocks.”

Ned reaches over and pushes a strand of dark hair away from Nell’s cheek. “He looked like Robert did twenty years ago, black-haired and full of fire.” He glances down at Nell’s lap. “What are you writing?”

“A letter,” says Nell softly. “To your lady wife.”

Shadows slip across Ned’s eyes then and he turns to stare at the dipping boughs of black cottonwood stretching before him. His shoulders hunch against the oak at his back as if a chill breeze suddenly whips amongst the dapples of sunlight in the grove. He flexes his fingers as if warming them before a fire.

“Do you miss her?” asks Nell gently.

“Hmm,” says Ned quietly, staring at his hands and the leaves. “What lord does not miss his lady when war or duty separates them for a time?”

Nell tilts her head as he meets her eyes, her fine black brows lifting high.

“Ned,” she chides softly. “As husband, as lover – do you miss her?”

Ned sighs and stares at her, his grey eyes soft as a summer storm. “I miss my sons,” he murmurs. “I miss the grey stones of home. I miss the red leaves and black pool of the godswood. I miss my hounds and my hawks and the smell of pine deep in the wolfswood. I miss the warmth of your little room in the tower.” He smiles then, soft and sad. “And yes, I miss Cat, too.”

Nell smiles too, her eyes dipping to the letter in her lap. “You spoke of chasing secrets the night that last we loved.” Her voice is light and cheerless. “Seems to me we are the master and mistress of secrets, my lord – even here in this place of shadows and webs and soft words.” Her eyes rise, tremulous and stormy, seeking his. “You spend your days chasing them and your nights creating more… we sail on a sea of secrets, don’t we, Ned?”

He rakes his hand through his hair and meets her gaze full and true. “She was supposed to be my brother’s bride,” he says quietly. “But when Brandon died in a blaze of blood and fire alongside our father, I did my duty. I took off her maiden cloak and draped her in the grey of my house.” His eyes are troubled. “I said the words and sat at the feast and held her in naked bed. When I had done with warring, I returned to her at Winterfell with my black-haired boy and met the other with hair red as hers.” He blinks at her. “I loved them both something fierce, but Cat… she was Brandon’s bride to me for years, Nell. She was never meant for me, none of it was.” He looks down at his hands. “I learned to shoulder duty, to honour family, to foster love, for true. Then I set ship for the Iron Islands and everything changed in a storm of salt and sand.”

Nell watches him at war with himself in the deep shade of the godswood, watches as the chain of golden hands about his neck flames red-gold in the dapples of sunlight falling through the canopy of elm and alder and black cottonwood. She reaches out to him and he takes her hand quick as a shadow and grips it tight.

“Even gods fall prey to storms and wild seas, Eddard Stark,” she says softly. “You are but a man – a good man, but a man all the same.” She strokes his knuckles with her thumb. “It is the siren who drew you to her home of black rock and storm with spells of saltspray and sea-foam that ought be ashamed.”

At that, his eyes flash up to hers and he pulls her to him with a sharp tug on her hand. She tumbles against his chest and holds his stare grey as stone, sees the fury and love stirring restless in the depths.

“Never,” he says, his voice a hiss. “She should _never_ be ashamed.” He kisses her swift and hard. “It was her song that saved me from the darkness and despair of war and death and murdered brothers and stolen sisters.” He rests his forehead against hers. “Never forget that, Nell, please.”

“I have called myself a thousand names these past years,” whispers Nell. “Harlot and whore and heathen and witch – ”

“You have but one name to me,” breathes Ned against her lips. “ _Beloved_.” He shudders in her arms. “But enough of the past, Nell.” He closes his eyes. “I am already half-drowned by the smoke and sound of the present.” He opens his eyes, the shadows gone from them, and leans back against the tree, cradling her to his chest. “The city is full to bursting with folk gathering for this damned tourney, the streets thick with rapists and robbers.” He gives a sigh; Nell’s head rises and falls with his breath. “I have given twenty of my own guard to bolster the City Watch, but unrest burns like wildfire in this heat.”

“And like wildfire, it will burn itself out,” says Nell, her tone firm and sure. “Sell some of the dresses heaped in your tower and mayhap you’ll be able to buy half a hundred more gold cloaks.”

Ned groans. “These lords and ladies,” he grumbles. “Have they no shame to heap a girl of thirteen with hopes of future favour?”

Nell chuckles. “Byrch and Bywater sent bolts of silk, azure and apple green,” she says earnestly, counting them off on her fingers. “Chyttering gave white satin embroidered with golden thread. Follard red velvet, Langward burgundy damask, Turnberry a strawberry brooch.” She rolls to face him. “And Mace Tyrell sent a gown of rosewood silk this morrow.”

Ned’s face darkens. “He dips lower than his banners did at Storm’s End.”

“I thought we were escaping the past, my lord?” says Nell lightly.

She is rewarded by laughter lighting Ned’s eyes.

“True enough,” he says. “So rosewood silk for Sansa, something dark to hide the dirt for Arya.” He looks down at Nell now. “And for you?”

Nell stares up at him unblinking. “A septa’s cowl, my lord, to show the virtue shining true and proud in my heart.”

He laughs at that, deep and long, and they roll from the oak tree, crushing skirts and letter and landing breathless amongst the leaves. Ned leans on his elbows atop her, smiling as she laughs up into his face.

“A septa’s cowl, hmm?” Ned bends to press a kiss to each of her cheeks, rosy and bright with mirth. She slides her hands into his hair and holds him steady, laughing still against his lips as she kisses him.

“We could play at being pious sweethearts, then.” Her voice is thick with laughter, her eyes bright on his. “Choose a ship with a seven-pointed star on its sail to cross the sea of secrets we keep.” She tips her chin up and stares at him through narrowed eyes. “Would our love be seen pure and true then, I wonder?”

“All I know is you are mine and I am yours,” whispers Ned, his eyes as bright as his smile as he rubs his nose against hers. “That is all I know, my love.”

ლ

Nell stands in the rookery amidst the chatter of beaks and flutter of feathers and watches the raven take wing and cut through the clouds ringing the Red Keep. _Fly hard for home, bird of black and blue_. She watches until it disappears beyond the setting sun and then she turns to leave with a word of thanks to the maester’s steward.

The man acknowledges her with a dip of his head, his face hidden by the shadows of his cowl, his soft hands twisting beneath deep sleeves of undyed wool. He smells of birdshit and raw meat and ink and parchment; but something sharper lingers below that ugly perfume. _Something sweeter_ , thinks Nell. It fills her nose as she brushes past him and curls around her thick as smoke.  _Sweet and sharp all at once_.

She is halfway down the winding steps of the rookery when she hears a voice low and dark as storm fill her ears as full as that bittersweet scent clouds her nose.

“Does love cease to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret?” asks the low dark storm, slipping like the sea down the steps and dragging at her skirts and waist.

She feels as if she is swirling in cold water; her breath clots in her throat as she turns and takes the steps two at a time, tumbling to the top and emerging breathless and wild-eyed. She looks for the low dark storm, the deep cowl of shadows and silence, the soft hands twisting into coarse sleeves.

But the rookery is empty save for beaks and beady eyes and that bittersweet scent curling about its cages.

 _Sweet and sharp all at once_ , thinks Nell, _a web of perfume and words of storm spun thick as smoke about me_ … She turns and gazes out at the red-lit river framed by the rookery’s arched window, her face firm, her eyes dark. _But a spider's web is not salt water and it cannot sink me_.

“I am iron and ice,” says Nell quietly to the rush of the river before her. “I’ll drown your web or freeze it – strand by strand.”

The stones around her seem to sound with soft laughter now, and the low dark voice fills the tower quiet and calm as the hot air sweeping up off the river.

“If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive.”

Sudden as it sounded, soft laughter and stormy voice stops. The sound of the Blackwater fills the stones and the rookery is empty save for beaks and beady eyes and that bittersweet scent curling about its cages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. **Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret** : lifted from _The Lover's Watch_ (1686) by Aphra Behn.  
>  2\. **If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive** : Spanish proverb.


	14. Lady of the Salt Winds

Nell walks the cloistered pathways of the Red Keep, her slippered feet soundless, her woollen skirts sweeping along the red flagstones. The sun is halfway risen from behind soft pink hills to the east and the shady walkways are warm and quiet. Clipped hedges of yew and evergreen peak over the waist-height walls, bursts of pink petals and orange blossoms pepper the dark green leaves, and tendrils of jasmine, hibiscus and flowering indigo maple toy softly in the light breeze sweeping up off the Blackwater, catching at her hair and cheeks. She trails her hand over the bobbing heads of mandevilla flowers and catches at a burst of angelwing petals; the scent fills her head and warms her heart. As she inhales, lost in her bliss, there comes a sharper scent: lavender and perfume and powder. _Sweet and sharp all at once_. She turns her head and knows instantly who stands before her in loose purple silk.

“The lady of the salt winds,” says Varys, his voice as soft and lush as his robes. “You often walk these pathways in the early morning light.” He tilts his head to the side and twists his hands together. “But your hand is always limp at your side or picking at the heads of flowers – it is never laced through the arm of a companion.” His eyes gleam as he smiles merrily. “Always alone, my lady of the salt winds, but I never think for a moment that you are lonely.”

Nell regards the master of whisperers coolly, but she remembers her manners and dips a perfunctory curtsey. He bows his head briefly in response and looks out through the leaves of evergreen and yew to the smoky city nestled amongst the pink hills. The merry smile stays soft on his lips.

“Even in the heart of a foreign city leagues from your home, you find some small token of the north.” He does not look from the hills but indicates with a sweep of his sleeve the clutch of white and red flowers she cups in her palm. “I believe Lady Catelyn keeps a pot or two of angelwing begonias in her glass house by the godswood.” He turns to look at her now, his eyes as cheerless as they are bright and blue. “Is that not so?”

 _Does he think to scare me with his knowledge of pots and petals?_ Nell thinks. She keeps the suspicion from her gaze and gives a little nod of her head. “There are pink rock roses, too, my lord, and bindweed, ice plants and lantern trees.” She looks at him innocently enough, but she sees the flicker of amusement cross his face. “My lady keeps her glass house well-stocked and in bloom.”

“And in the godswood?” asks Varys, and his voice drops deep and deadly. “In Lord Stark’s holy grove – what grows there besides red-gold leaves and hidden kisses?”

Nell’s heart plummets, plunges heavy as a stone in a river, crashing to her stomach, making it roil. _A web of perfume and words of storm spun thick as smoke about me_ … She wants to retch and scream; but her face stays calm, her head tilts in that innocent way and she blinks at him, confused. “My lord?” she says, her voice small and soft. “The godswood is a wild place of ivy-draped oak, ironwood and ash. Larkspur and wormwood grow in the shadows of its tumbledown walls.” _Love grows there too_ , she thinks, _love and fire and stolen kisses by moonlight_. “It’s been the same for ten thousand years, my lord – half as many kisses may lie hidden in its red-gold leaves. I have never stopped to count or care.”

The master of whisperers laughs then, and it is a sound like silk on stone. He clasps his hands together and his giggles fill the cloistered walkway. “Very pretty,” he says. “Very pretty indeed, my lady of the salt winds.” He looks full upon her now, his gleaming eyes travelling slowly from her slippers to her face. “You are as poised as a dancer and sweet words slip from your lips as easily as poison into a cup… shall I tell you a secret?” He draws closer to her now, the pearls worked into the collar of his robes winking like conspirators in the sunlight. “The red city doesn’t quite know what to make of your arrival, my lady. Some say you are a songstress sent to drive men to tears with your honey voice and lovely eyes. Some call you a siren, they say you weave spells of salt and seaspray and lure good men onto treacherous paths.” That merry little smile plays again on his lips. “And some say nothing at all.”

“They are oft the most dangerous, my lord,” murmurs Nell, her eyes weighing him up as his do her. “The ones that stay silent in the shadows, listening to whispers, spreading quiet words like wild oats in the grass.”

“Clever as well as pretty,” smiles Varys. “Littlefinger thinks you are soft and sweet as a blood orange, ripe to be plucked and palmed and shaped to need and desire. I dare say the other lords of the small council think much the same.” He spreads his hands and his brows leap. “Well, all except for _one_.” The light tarries in his eyes. “Our good Hand knows you for what you are, my lady, and that is neither fruit nor fool, no.”

Nell looks hard at him. The cold gleam has dropped from his gaze; but she mistrusts him still, this slippery man of shadows and soft words. “What do you want with me, Lord Varys?” She releases the handful of angelwing petals as she speaks and watches the soft breeze catch and twist the red-white blooms. When she turns back, the master of whisperers is looking at her intently, his scent of lavender and perfume curling about her as thickly as the blossom. _Sweet and sharp all at once_.

“I want very much to keep our good Hand in a place of power and position,” he says, his voice so soft and swift she strains to hear it. “And to do so, I believe I must utilise your own place of power: that crook of blood and ice you inhabit between bone and flesh.” He gently taps the powdered robes covering his chest. “Our good Hand’s own heart.”

“My lord – ”

He lifts a hand to silence her. “We have small time for pretty words and dancer’s poise now, my lady of the salt winds.” His voice is quick and sharp, but his eyes are not unkind. “Deny it if you please, shout it from the rookery, it makes no matter. I have welcomed my little birds back to the nest and listened to their cooing and there they remain – their whispers wormfood for my ears only.”

“I’ll neither shout nor deny, Lord Varys,” says Nell, her voice cool and calm. “I’ll find your little nest and break every beak and egg my fingers can grasp before I whisper anything to you.”

“So much fire,” chuckles Varys, his hands tangling together. “Fierce as a she-wolf, soft as the sea on a still day. I can see why our good Hand gave his heart to you… but you mustn’t be so hasty, my lady.” He looks at her, unblinking, a smile warm on his cheeks. “I have as little desire as you to see you snug in my nest. I want your beak in my ear as much as if it were pecking at my bloodied throat.” He gives a comic shudder, twisting his fingers into his sleeves. “No, I do not want your service, my lady of the salt winds, I want nothing of you except…”

She narrows her eyes at him, her face calm and composed, but her heart is leaping against her ribs. “Except what, Lord Varys?”

He spreads his hands, his shoulders lifting in a half-shrug. “I want nothing of you,” he says again. “But to counsel caution, to whisper watchfulness, to encourage our good Hand to ofttimes forget his honour in place of due care and vigilance.” He dips his head. “Meanwhile I will stay in the shadows, listen to whispers and spread a quiet word here and there – but that _particular_ oat will stay sown in my pocket, kept from the grasses and the birds that swoop to pluck them.”

“Why?” asks Nell.

Varys spreads his hands again and backs up half a step. “Our good Hand administers to the realm with grace and truth and _I_ serve the realm – that puts us on the same side of the river, for now.” He inclines his head. “Now run and whisper, my lady of the salt winds, and keep us both where the realm needs us: here and breathing on this redstone riverbank.”

ლ

The Tower of the Hand is chaos and confusion; Nell slips past Jory Cassel helping Alyn into his plate and Harwin hopping on one leg to pull on his boots. Septa Mordane has herded Sansa and Jeyne to one side of the small hall, an iron-hard hand whipping out to catch Arya by the shoulder as she tries to disappear. Nell exchanges a black look shot from beneath the girl’s sleek dark hair as the septa begins a lengthy sermon on how they must all behave. They share a bitten-back smile before Nell disappears toward the winding stone steps.

She finds a gown laid on her bed. Frowning, she picks it up and holds it in the sunlight spilling through the window. It is light as air. Smoke-coloured silk, draped sleeves, full skirts, and silver thread twining in shapes and curls – here waves of the sea, there tendrils of leaf and blossom, everywhere speckling in a thousand pinpricks catching the sunlight like stars. _Silver thread as seaspray_ , she thinks sadly, _to match a siren’s spells_. She sheds her grey wool dress and laces herself into the smoke-coloured silk. It is cut low, baring her shoulders and smooth white throat. She glances at the looking glass and watches the sun catch the silver wolf’s head snarling at its chain around her neck, follows the glimmer of silver thread glittering across her hips.

“A goddess of the sea,” comes a murmur from behind her and strong arms find their way around her waist, hard hands flatten at her hips. She meets his eyes in the looking glass and lifts a hand to cup his cheek where it lays smooth beard against her shoulder.

“It is beautiful, my lord,” whispers Nell, her fingers whispering along his jaw. _Too beautiful for a songstress and a siren_ … But she smiles at his reflection. “A thousand thanks.”

“Exchange thanks for kisses and I will gladly accept them, my love,” Ned says with mischief in his eyes. He turns her in his arms and strokes back the black curls from her brow. “Mayhap that will make up for the ones I missed this morrow.”

She wants to tell him all that has passed in the quiet hours since she slipped from his bed. She wants to tell him of the soft words and shadows that the master of whisperers cast in the half-lit walkways smelling of yew and jasmine and perfume and powder. But she gazes up at him now and sees true happiness light his eyes.

 _I’ll let him have this day_ , she thinks, _this one day where I bring no further worry and weary fury to cloud those lovely grey eyes_.

Nell lifts her hands to rest on his shoulders, her fingers clutching the soft grey doublet, and she stands on tiptoe to land a deep kiss on his mouth. She feels the whistle of his breath warm her tongue and draws back, smoothing her hand through his dark hair as she presses a kiss to both his cheeks.

“Three will have to do, my love,” she murmurs. “There is a tourney to attend and even kisses cannot keep away its host.”

“True enough,” says Ned with a soft chuckle. “True enough, Nell Northwood.”

ლ

They make a pretty picture sat in their places of honour in the tourney stands: Sansa Stark with roses at her throat and fire-red hair plaited and pinned, Jeyne Poole with dark eyes luminous as her cobalt gown, and Nell wreathed in sunlit silver smoke with shoulders bare and smooth. She feels Ned’s eyes on her now and then from where he sits with his king, but she dares not meet his gaze. There are half a thousand other eyes on the three of them; she is sure they can spy every breath and bloom of blood in her cheeks. _A septa’s cowl may have been a clever idea after all_ … She turns to watch as Septa Mordane leads Jeyne away from the stands and blood-stained sand; the girl’s sobs flaring loud and true for the death of a knight she never knew.

Now Nell sits with a white rose in her lap and Ned’s flat dark eyes on her hair as the Knight of Flowers trots away in a cloud of dust and applause. Sansa bites her lip and looks at the soft white petals enviously, her fingers smoothing her golden sleeves. Nell catches her hand and squeezes it. _He’ll be back_ , she thinks, _with words prettier than the flowers on his cloak, of that I’m sure_.

The jousting continues till the sun begins to slip below cloud and castle; the dusky sky is golden and bright, burnishing the armour and plate and silvered standards of lord and knight alike to flame and flaring light. The final tilt is as furious as the first; but one rider slips like a shadow to the dirt and the other canters gracefully to the claps and cheers of the crowd. Leaving Ser Robar Royce to spit dust from his mouth, Ser Loras Tyrell turns his pretty horse and approaches the tourney stands, a rose as red as the setting sun held in his hand. Nell thinks of the songs and fairytales of old as Sansa stands nervously, the dusky light making her skin smooth cream against the rosy silk of her gown, and stretches out her hand to grasp the rose.

The Knight of Flowers dips his head to Sansa and drinks her in with his dark golden eyes, the setting sun glowing his soft brown curls to flame.

“No victory is half so beautiful as you,” he says silkily and the crowd claps heartily as Sansa’s cheeks colour red as the rose in her hand.

“None indeed,” says a voice in Nell’s ear, shattering the beauty of the moment. “I’ll wager her handmaid is wishing wolf was to be wed to rose instead of lion.”

Nell turns to meet Littlefinger’s cool quick eyes and dips her head. “Ser Loras speaks pretty words from a pretty face,” she says carefully and coolly. “But my lady Sansa has eyes only for her prince.”

Littlefinger gives a little laugh at that and his silver eyes rove over Sansa as if she is a palfrey he likes the look of and wishes to set in his stables. Nell fights the flare of anger burning in her throat. _Flames for hair and sapphires for eyes_. Sansa is radiant in the dying sunlight: a feast for quick cool eyes.

“Rosewood silk and sleeves of gold,” says Littlefinger, stroking his pointed beard. “A moonstone charm of home amidst threads of silver and gold and rose petals.” He meets Nell’s eyes now. “If only petitioners put as much effort into their speeches as a girl of thirteen puts into her dressing.” He raises a brow. “Mayhap then their words would reach an ear with enough influence, wealth and power to bring life to their cause.”

“Sansa has an eye for choosing colours,” says Nell with a tight smile.

“And a handmaid skilled in blending them to form patterns that catch attention as readily as a snare traps a rabbit,” rejoins Littlefinger, tilting his head to one side. “I wonder how you sat so calm in the frozen wasteland of the north for nigh on ten years.” His eyes leap with light. “In but a few short weeks amongst redstone walls, you have… come alive, Lady Northwood.”

 _Perhaps not so soft and sweet as a blood orange, Lord Baelish, is that the truth?_ Nell blinks up at him innocently and feels a savage twist of joy to see a flicker of uncertainty tarry for a second in his eyes.

“I am only a handmaid of the salt winds,” she says softly. “Sworn to serve House Stark with the grace and courage the gods see fit to give me.”

Littlefinger opens his mouth to reply when his eyes pass over Nell and fasten on something beside her. She glances to see Sansa at her side, the red rose still clutched in her hand, her blue eyes still dream-drunk from the pretty words of Ser Loras Tyrell.

“You must be one of her daughters,” says Littlefinger, the light back in his silver eyes. “You have the Tully look.”

 _Flames for hair and sapphires for eyes_ , thinks Nell with hate in her heart, _gazing at her as Cat’s own self with hunger in your belly_. Her hands turn to fists hidden in the draped sleeves of her own. _Would that I could cast the dark salt-magic they whisper of me and drown it out_.

“I’m Sansa Stark,” says Sansa, her voice timid. Her blue eyes fly to the silver mockingbird pinning Littlefinger’s cloak. “I have not had the honour, my lord.”

Nell takes her hand and gives a grim little smile. “This is Lord Petyr Baelish, dear heart,” she says coolly. “He sits on the king’s small council with your lord father.”

“Your mother was _my_ queen of beauty once,” says Littlefinger quietly and Nell hates him for it. “You have her hair.” His fingers lift and brush along Sansa’s cheek before he turns and melts into the crowd.

Sansa turns to Nell with eyes wide as saucers and a tremble in her lip.

“What did he mean, Nell?” she asks, confusion knitting her brows. “What did he mean, my mother as queen of – ”

“Pretty words,” says Nell with a smile and a squeeze to Sansa’s hand. “Pretty words, that’s all, my heart.” She glances up at the darkening sky and threads Sansa’s arm through her own. “Put them out of your head, sweet Sansa, and enjoy the feast that follows this day honouring men’s folly.”

They make a pretty picture as they make their way to the great hall: Sansa Stark with roses at her throat and fire-red hair plaited and pinned with a rose redder than any other in her hand, and Nell wreathed in moonlit silver smoke with shoulders bare and smooth. There are as many eyes as the stars on them now as they cut their way through keep and castle, eyes that spy every breath and bloom of blood in their cheeks.

 _A thousand eyes of silver and shadow, webs of perfume and words of storm_. Nell’s face is firm in the silver light of the stars and her grip on Sansa’s hand is steady. _But they are not salt water and they cannot sink me_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NB** : lifts snippet of speech from Littlefinger and Sansa's introduction at the Hand's tourney ( _A Game of Thrones_ Chapter 29: Sansa II).


	15. Ruby Raindrops and Silver Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

The first day of the Hand’s tourney ends with a feast. Trestle tables of oak and ash run the length of the great hall and are buried beneath trenchers and platters of charred aurochs, suckling pig, lamprey pies, pastries carved in a thousand fanciful shapes, black bread, pike and cod stewed in fireberry peppers and figs, bowls of strawberries and sweetgrass. Wine and ale flows thick and free, clouding cups and sending raucous shouts and boisterous laughter ringing against the rafters to mix with the merry music of pipe and drum.

Ned sits to the right of his king at the high table before the Iron Throne. Robert is red-faced and rowdy, his eyes bright with mirth and wine as they swoop and sway across the lower benches. He points out to Ned lords he does not like, ladies he has bedded, skulls he wants to crack with his warhammer. He hefts his wine-cup in demonstration and brings it down with a smash, spilling wine over his green-and-gold velvet doublet. He laughs at that and then swift as a storm sadness darkens his eyes.

“Ruby raindrops,” says the king, his voice thick. “Like blood flowing in the Trident.” He raises his eyes and focuses them on Ned. “I swear to you, I was never so alive as when I was winning this throne, or so dead as now that I’ve won it.” He flings the broken cup onto the sticky flagstones and stares hard at Ned. “And don’t prattle to me about my god-given victory as they do in the songs.” He clenches his fist. “The gods be damned. It was a hollow victory they gave me. A crown… it was the girl I prayed them for. Your sister, safe and mine again, as she was meant to be. I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown? The gods mocked me the day they placed it on my head.”

Ned looks at Robert and sees him as the giant he was all those years ago, armoured and helmed, bandying his warhammer as though it were light as air. The wine drips in slow drops from the arm of the king’s chair and clouds the floor in crimson puddles. The smell of memory rises in Ned’s nose: black petals and a bed of blood. _Promise me, Ned_. He closes his eyes a moment and fights the image from his head. When he opens them, Robert is slumping in his seat, his lazy eyes circling the hall, a fresh cup of wine clutched in his fist. His gaze stops on his gold-haired queen as she leaves the hall in a sweep of crimson skirts.

“That witch I call my wife,” says Robert, his voice low and wine-slow. “She hates me, always has. Eyes colder than a dead fish, claws sharper than the lion of her house. She’ll be the end of me, I swear it.” His eyes trip from Cersei’s red-and-gold back and land on the table a few feet from his own. He blinks a few times and scratches his beard. “Is that handmaid flesh-and-blood or some ale-soaked vision?”

Ned breathes hard through his nose as he sees where Robert’s eyes have landed and fights the uneasy twist rising in his belly. “Cat sent her to catch ship from White Harbor,” says Ned evenly. “It’s been some weeks since she docked.” _A week or four or six_ , thinks Ned, _days blurred to one by heat and hands and hard love till dawn_ … “You were right, Your Grace, the girls needed a handmaid. They are very happy to see Nell again.”

Robert’s eyes are misty. “Silk and lace and linen,” he says, his voice thick with lust. “Just as I told you, Ned. She looks a queen.” His eyes tarry too long on Nell as she slips into her seat at the table.

Ned feels ice in his blood at the heat of the king’s tone, but he cannot deny the truth of his words. Nell wears her gown of silver-smoke silk, tight to the waist and flowing in soft waves over her hips, rippling and twisting like heavy water in the torchlight, and her hair is black and wild down her back. _She is lovely_ , he thinks reluctantly, _lovely as all the roses in Highgarden – with a scent twice as heady_.

“Hair as glossy as a raven’s wing,” sighs the king, his eyes catching where Ned’s rest on the tresses curling at her hips. He flashes Ned a glance. “Tell me you’ve had her, Ned. You _must’ve_ had her. Nine years watching that arse swaying around your keep… you must have.” Robert’s face is half-serious, half-smiling. “Even Eddard Stark of the frozen heart must have enough hot blood to get a hard cock over that pretty maid.” He gives a laugh at Ned’s thin smile and wipes his eyes. “Gods, you’re a better man than me, then. If she were Cersei’s handmaid, I’d have got a dozen bastards on her by now.”

“And had her head served to you pretty on a platter by your queen,” says Ned mildly. “Nell is my ward, Robert. I took her from that black rock of seaweed and storm to help her – not to have her.” _That part is true_ , he thinks, _the rest… history_. He lifts his cup to his lips and drinks a swallow of summerwine. “Do you remember our victory feast in Balon Greyjoy’s hall?”

Robert gives a soft chuckle. “I remember,” he says. “A smoky black place, that hall. I hear the sea still as it crashed on the rocks beneath us.”

“Do you remember the singing?” asks Ned softly, and his eyes turn from the king to rest on Nell. He sees her in that gown of black-and-gold, her shoulders bare and browned by sun and salt winds, her hair bound up off her neck, her lips trembling in song as her fingers plucked the lyre in her lap. _A siren’s song_ , he thinks, _silver words of sea and ship and storm making men weep into their cups_. He’d been half weeping too, his eyes stung from smoke and song above his bloody beard.

“ _My Jolly Sailor Bold_ ,” replies Robert. “I remember that tune played on a harp or lyre. The rest of that night is made black by wine and the wench that fed me it…” The king’s voice slurs and shudders and is soon overtaken by soft snores. Ned looks to see him fast asleep in his throne, drooping into his beard, the wine-cup dangling from his fingers. He turns back to look at Nell.

“I remember every word she sang that night,” says Ned quietly. “Every sweep of her strings and tilt of her head. She was a goddess of the sea in black-and-gold, her voice a spell of seaspray echoing in that smoky hall.” He sighs to himself as the snores grow louder. “She stole my heart with her song and her stare and I knew I had to take her from that place, Robert, I knew it. She was too beautiful for its bare cliffs and bluffs of black rock.” A leap of love flares in his eyes as Nell’s lips part in a giggle at something Jeyne or Sansa has said. “Balon Greyjoy knew it, too. The morning after her song, he tried to give her to the Drowned God of the salt sea.” Ned shudders at the memory, feels bile rising in his throat to think of how it could have ended. “I came upon him as he held her under the waves. He’d stripped her of cloak and gown and I saw the marks he had left on her, the bruises and the cuts and the burns. He was a terrible thing that day, Robert, terrible. A driftwood crown low on his brow, his face gaunt and thin, his iron hands holding her beneath the water.” Ned’s own fingers flex. “It took three men to prise him away from the shore. She was half-dead, naked as her nameday, blue with cold and purple with bruises. I wrapped her in my cloak and set my silver around her neck and promised I’d keep her safe.”

 _Iron turns to ice_ , the words ring in his head, _salt turns to snow_. He sees her eyes as they were that day, red-rimmed by seawater, blue-grey as its depths, her hands clutching at his back as he lifted her and carried her from the currents. He watches her now in her silken gown, smiling with his daughter, her eyes bright and full of life and laughter. _I will keep you safe, Nell, I promise_.

“I promised her, Robert,” says Ned to the sleeping king. “A gift of silver to mark the oath I swore that day stained by salt and sand. She wears it still beneath her gown, kept close to her heart.” He feels tears warm his eyes. “And I keep my oath.” He looks down at the puddle of wine glowing blood-red in the torchlight and sees dead rose petals twist amongst its depths. _Promise me, Ned_. His shoulders sag as if he carries the weight of the world. “A Stark of Winterfell always keeps his word.”

He watches with his head in his hand as Nell turns flashing eyes from Sansa to Jeyne, her hand lifting to push her smooth dark hair back behind her ear; Ned’s fingers twitch on his jaw. “Oh, but she was wild, Robert. Wild and wind-whipped as the sea of her home. She smashed up against every rule and word like waves to black rock and cliff chasm. Broke any finger brave enough to creep at her bodice come feast days and harvest time.” Ned’s voice is soft and bittersweet. “But when she sang in the great hall, a hundred men fell silent – even the Greatjon. And the sound… the sound.” His eyes are misty. “It is silver light and snow and storm. It is the dark smoke of the north. It is home, Robert, _home_.”

 _Hearth and home and heart tree_ , thinks Ned, _she is all three to me_.

“What is honour compared with smoke and sound and silver light, my king?” asks Ned, his brow furrowed, his heart heavy in his chest. “What is duty in place of love?” He looks from spilled wine to sleeping king to the soft blush of Nell’s cheek in the fire-glow. “Lyanna once told me that love could not change a man’s nature – no matter how sweet and soft and soulful it was.” He feels warmth flood his belly. “But she was wrong, Robert.” He thinks distantly of Nell’s unsteady eyes rising to meet his in that sea-swept, smoky hall and hears her song sinking like sweet wine in his throat. “Love can be a storm, unwelcome and unbidden, bringing gales and rains that sweep away everything a man once thought he was. Then the tempest clears, and it lays its roots, strong and thick, and life is forever changed… bones and blood and breath – the very essence of a man.”

Ned sits still and quiet as the merry music draws to a close and the hall erupts in claps and cheers. Robert snaps to sitting in his throne, his face red with sleep, his eyes bleary and confused.

“Gods be good!” he exclaims, clapping his hands together to join the crowds. “What were we saying, Ned?”

Ned smiles his soft sad smile and burns Nell with his stare. “Nothing, my king.” His voice is low and warm. “Nothing at all.”

ლ

The castle is a play of silver light and shadows when Nell slips from the feast. Ned watches from his seat at the high table and longs to follow her. By now, the hall has grown wild with wine, the shouts and shrill laughter echoing tenfold against the rafters. The queen of red-and-gold is back in her throne, her pale face stretched tight as stone, and the king’s stare has moved from sleep-heavy to red with anger. Ned sits patient as he can but finally the fire bursts in his heart. _Damn them all_ , he thinks, _what is duty in place of love?_ He rises from his chair and bows to his king.

“I am for my bed, Your Grace,” he says to Robert.

The king nods and sways up from his throne, catching at Ned’s shoulder as he turns to leave. Robert’s breath is wine-heavy, his cheeks ruddy above the great black beard, but his eyes are bright and blue as the Sunset Sea. He stares at Ned with a gaze of well-honed steel and a smile flickers white against black.

“Rest well, old friend,” says Robert. “The morrow will bring another day of sword and steel and plate, the night another feast for belly and eyes.” He frowns then and searches Ned’s face as if he is remembering something buried deep. “Have your handmaid bring her harp, Ned.” His eyes are clearer now. “I mean to hear again the words of silver song from that smoky sea-swept hall.” He smiles broader now and squeezes Ned’s shoulder. “Mayhap she can write a new one once you’ve helped me make this a reign to sing of.”

The smile falls from Ned’s face as soon as he has passed out of the doors of the great hall. He walks the outer yard in a hundred quick steps, his pace never slowing as the shadows of the portcullis slip over his face and he plunges across the middle bailey to mount the stone steps up to the Tower of the Hand. _Have your handmaid bring her harp_. Ned grimaces; he’d sooner keep Nell well away from the eyes of king and queen. _Far, far away… across soil and sea and riverlands and snow, beyond the land of always winter to a place where honour does not exist and love reigns instead_... He sets his shoulders and climbs the winding stair, the soft sound of his boots on stone the only noise in the sleeping tower.

He finds her in her own bedchamber. She stands with her back to him looking out through the golden glass of the tall window beside her red-curtained bed. She has shed her gown of silver smoke and wears a thin chemise, her hair a black plait trailing to her hips. He watches as the moonlight mingles with the golden tint of the glass and turns the curve of her cheek to honey. The room is small and warm and full of the smoke of song.

“ _Oh, won’t you come with me?_

_Where the moon is made of gold_

_And in the morning sun_

_We’ll be sailing, oh, we’ll be sailing_.”

Ned watches her and needs her in an instant. He crosses the room once he has slipped the door shut and draws her from the window with a hand on her hip. She yields to him instantly, turning in his arms and resting her forehead against his chest. He thumbs her cheeks and tips her chin up to look into her eyes. He frowns to see the shadows in the stormy blue-grey depths and rubs his nose gently against hers.

“What troubles you, my love?” he asks, his hands passing from her face to her waist. “You look at me as if your heart will break.”

She tilts her head and looks deep into his eyes, her fingers rising to whisper across his cheek. “Tell me, Ned, and tell me true, does love cease to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret?” Her voice is as soft and sad as her song.

He hums beneath his breath and strokes circles into her skin where his hands rest at her waist. “Never,” he says softly after a moment. “If we were far away in a place where love reigned and honour did not exist.” _A place across soil and sea and riverlands and snow, beyond the land of always winter_ …

She smiles at that, a half-broken pretty little smile, and he feels his heart burst in his chest. She lifts herself to her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his mouth. He drinks her deep and feels her perfume bloom like flowers in his nose. _Lovely as all the roses in Highgarden – with a scent twice as heady_. She sinks back onto her heels and draws from their kiss with red lips and soft eyes.

“I saw silver words in the daylight and missed the spider spinning webs in the shadows,” she murmurs, her fingers tangling in his dark beard. “We were almost undone, my love.”

Ned understands her with a dull thud of realisation; his hands grip her waist a little tighter. “This city,” he whispers, his voice hard and thick. He lowers his forehead to rest on hers and shudders a sigh. “This _damn_ city.”

“If you want me to go, I will go, Ned,” says Nell, her voice dark with despair. “I would never want to be the cause of harm to you and your girls in this viper’s pit, Ned, _never_.” Her eyes flash on his and he loves her with all the fire in his heart. “Believe it.”

“Oh, my love, how could I ever not believe it?” says Ned, his throat thick with fierce sadness. “You are all that is good for me and mine in this place, Nell. Would that these men who play at whispers could understand that.” He twists his forehead against hers gently. “Would that they could understand that life is a shell and a shadow without your love.” He looks down into her eyes with a fierceness she’s never seen before. “Would that I could understand it myself.”

He takes her lips then and his kiss is deep and endless and full of fury and passion and need as he slips the chemise from her shoulders, as her fingers fumble with his doublet and belt and laces. He sits back on the edge of her red-curtained bed, his legs apart and then pulling closed as she steps into the circle of his arms. Her small hand lifts to his face and smooths back the dark hair from his brow, slips across the wild beard hiding his downturned lips, finds them and traces them with her thumb. His hands are at her hips, leaving soft white marks in her flesh, and his eyes glance from her gaze to her breasts, growing stiff and heavy in the honeyed moonlight, and back again. He waits patiently: her Ned is a patient man.

“I heard you calling all those years ago,” she murmurs, her hand caressing his jaw, thumb skating his cheekbone, sweeping the tight skin beneath his eyes soothingly. “Dark dreams troubled you then as they trouble you now. Dreams of smoke and blood and roses. I see them sometimes when I look at you. I feel them in my heart, deep and heavy as a stone drops in a river.” She lowers herself onto his lap, pushing him back onto the bed, her arms resting lightly on his shoulders. “I know not of the promises you have made, the secrets you fight to keep, the thousand hurts you nurse because honour forces you to remember.” Her hand trails gently across his chest, over skin marked by scars and burns and bruises, and rests atop his heart. “But this I do know, this heart of yours that calls to mine – despite honour and duty and virtue. Damn them all, Ned, they are shells and shadows compared with the light love brings.”

He leans his forehead into her throat, breathing hard through his nose, his hands tracing patterns on her hips. She shudders, tips back her head, offers him her throat. He kisses it, tastes the salt of her skin with his tongue. Suddenly her mouth is on his, keening, whining, taking his tongue with her own, and her body is pushing hard against his, bearing him back onto the featherbed, her hands hawks’ claws on his chest. He moves lithe and quiet as a wolf, turning her under his body, pinning her hands in one of his above her head, diving to nip her throat and breathing a rattling sigh as she arches her body up off the bed in longing. He takes her mouth again, releases her hands and groans as they fall to his hair and twist and pull without mercy. He feels her legs part beneath him, feels her arch up and press her cunt to his belly. Hot and wet, she leaves her mark on his skin, her legs circling his hips and pulling with all her might to feel his flesh slick against hers.

“Come inside,” she whispers, shattering the quiet, pulling him by his hair back from her kiss. He drinks deep the drunk look in her eyes. “Oh, please, Ned, please.” He dips his head, sucks a nipple into his mouth and darts it with his tongue. She writhes uncontrollably beneath him, her hips bucking up against his cock, her hands curling around her breasts, forcing his mouth to play at both of them. “I need you back inside me, my lord.” His hand sweeps from her waist to her cunt and he parts her easily, runs a finger back and forth between the hot folds, feels her building fit to burst. “Ned, oh, Ned, oh love – ” she tips back her head, the pillow lost beneath her inky tresses, her hands scratching at his scalp as he suckles her nipple and holds her cunt in his palm. His thumb presses against her now and she jolts against him, yanks him up to meet her glare as she bites his lower lip hard. “Now,” she commands, impatient and imploding, ignoring the little smile playing at his lips. “I want you inside me now. I need you there, my love.”

He rears back slightly, his belly pressed against her, his eyes lighting triumphantly on her stiff nipples still showing wet from his mouth, and he spreads her legs further apart, pushing his cock into her slick hot folds, groaning heavily as she takes him, all of him, deep within her walls. Her moan is hardly human, it is a whimper, a whine, a feral broken thing, and her ankles cross over his back, her hips rising and knees lifting as she rocks back and takes him further inside, arching her back and pushing her breasts into his chest, exulting in the feel of him stretching pushing probing _filling_ her so completely. They stay very still for some time, neither daring to move, neither wanting to break the depth they share, not only in this primal connection of flesh, but here where their eyes meet and bleed into each other’s, soft grey drinking in deep blue.

“I belong here, Nell,” he says, his voice hoarse and low, his eyes clearing as if waking from some distant dream.

“You belong here,” she murmurs, lifting a hand to pull his face slowly down to hers. He kisses her, slow and soft and sad and sweet. “I am your home.”

He moves gently inside of her now, kisses the hurt pleasure pain away from her face. “You are my home.” His forehead rests against her own and her arms rise to wrap around his body, her hips rising up to meet his steady rhythm. “Damn this city, damn its whispers and its silver words and shadows.” Her soft moan tears his heart open and he knows in that instant that she is his and he is hers despite danger and dishonour and a thousand other things. “Damn them all,” he whispers into the warm cave of her mouth. “You are mine, love, and I am yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Verse lifted from _Song of the Sea_ by Nolwenn Leroy.  
>  2\. Last 900 or so words are (almost) entirely lifted from my oneshot **Damn Them All** \- I just thought that scene fitted perfectly here.


	16. The Handmaid's Harp

The Tower of the Hand is empty and quiet come noon. Ned left early to break his fast with the king by the riverside whilst Septa Mordane drove her flock of charges toward litter and tourney stands, keeping up a long speech about who would fight in the melee and final jousts. Nell slipped free from the septa’s clutches and stayed in the tower’s shadows until they had disappeared along with most of the guards. She has no need of tourney sand and champion’s roses today; tiredness weighs heavy on her eyes. Half the night she lay listening to Ned’s soft breath in sleep whilst patterns and half-formed shapes chased like fireflame across her mind; smoke and blood and daggers in the dark. _Black and red and gold_. She lay awake feeling Ned’s frustration as her own, run mad by thoughts of royal bastards and murdered lords and broken boys and the thread of black and red and gold that seems to encircle them. _But how?_

Dawn saw her sat gazing down at Ned as he slept, his brow heavy even in dreams, and thoughts of silver eyes and shadows and soft warnings uttered in daylight swirled like smoke in her mind. The thread of black and red and gold pulled tight and tense and she knew what she must do. _Will you grow stronger now, Nell?_ She pauses at the foot of the tower stair now and another face swims before her eyes: red-gold hair and blue Tully eyes creased at the corners. _Will you sink the heat that hurts them?_ Nell makes her way up the stair, step by stone step, the weight of duty and curiosity and oath a rope around her waist, drawing her to the tower’s peak. _I will sink the heat that hurts them, my lady, but first I must find the flames that fan it_ …

Dusk finds her in Ned’s solar, tucked in his high-backed chair with Maester Malleon’s great yellow book spread on the desk before her. She turns its well-thumbed pages and seeks the stamp of stag and lion, trawling past thousands of other marks: boar and kraken and lark and leopard and eagle. She thinks of Ned’s words in the gloom of the godswood as she shuffles through the pages. _He looked like Robert did twenty years ago, black-haired and full of fire_. She reads the lineage of House Baratheon, reads of lords now no more than bone and dust, but here and everywhere the entries of birth and babes are the same. _Black-haired and full of fire_. Her brow is furrowed as she thinks of the king and his court that first day they dined in Winterfell, sees them as they sat at the high table in roaring red-and-gold finery. _The golden-haired twins of queen and knight, the black-bearded red-faced mammoth of a king, and three children gold of hair_ …

“Stag and lion,” she whispers to herself, frowning at the book. “As different as iron and gold.” She bites her lip and feels a flicker of frustration as the colours spin like flames before her: black and red and gold. She thinks of Jon Arryn now and traces the pages he pored over in his final days. “What did you see? My lord, what did you see?”

“You play a dangerous game, my lady of the salt winds,” comes a soft voice from the doorway. She glances up to see a man in undyed wool, mud-caked boots and a cowl of deep shadow. He smells of sweat and dust, but lavender swells beneath as bittersweet as death. _Sweet and sharp all at once_.

“What game is that, Lord Varys?” asks Nell as he steps into the solar, his mud-caked boots moving as quietly as silk slippers.

He looks at her from beneath the shadows of his cowl; his eyes are soft and damp as his hands twisting in the coarse roughspun sleeves of his robe.

“Asking questions,” he murmurs. “They slip from your lips as easily as poison into a cup… and make those who would stay silent in the shadows begin to coo and tweet.” He pats his pocket. “Makes them circle in the hope of feasting on a handful of wild oats scattered in the long grasses.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Be it one or a handful – your oats would have grown tall as saplings already if you wished it.” Her voice is cool and careful.

He tilts his head to the side and stares at her, his eyes gleaming from the shadows of his hood. “Tell me, my lady of the salt winds,” he says softly, his lofty hand sweeping toward the yellow book spread before her. “What do you hope to glean by questioning lords of ash and bone?”

She meets his eyes unblinking. “These lords of ash and bone hold true to secrets that make men of flesh-and-blood wither in their beds.” _Secrets that fan the flames that threaten to hurt and harm me and mine_ … She sees the silver light flicker in his eyes. “Secrets that bring the threat of silver eyes and shadows and words of storm. Secrets that make poison drip like wine into a lord’s plated cup.”

“You are too clever by half, my lady of the salt winds,” murmurs Varys, drawing closer to the desk, his steps soundless and sure. “I see the shapes slowly forming chains and patterns in your mind but still you grasp and frown.” He smiles now as his scent of sweat and dust and lavender envelopes her. “Here is one more link to meld to your chain, my lady: _the seed is strong_.” He steps back swiftly. “A dying man’s final shout as maester’s hand closed cold eyes and watched breath fade away to nothing.” He bows his head and dissolves beneath the doorway. “Now, run and whisper, my lady of the salt winds, your king would hear a silver song from handmaid’s harp.”

ლ

The riverside is a glow of fireflame and moonlight. Silver and gold, it plays on the pavilions stretching in a sea of silk and canvas and fluttering multi-coloured standards along the midnight rush of the Blackwater. The king and his court dine beneath the stars tonight at trestle tables of oak and ash buried under plates of charred aurochs and bowls of strawberries and sweetgrass. Wine and ale flows thick and free as the night before, but no raucous shouts nor boisterous laughter rises to mix with pipe and drum amongst the star-speckled sky. Instead, half a thousand men sit transfixed as the lonely sound of a lyre rises like smoke and silver light.

Ned sits to the right of his king at the high table of the feast and watches what every other man watches this night: the handmaid and her harp.

Nell sits where they bid her a little way in front of the high table of king and queen. A brazier throws up sparks and glittering flame behind her, limning her in honey light and setting her smooth black hair to embers. She wears her gown of silver-smoke silk, her shoulders bare and browned by sun and salt winds, her white throat trembling as her fingers pluck the lyre in her lap. She sings a pretty song or two, soft words of sea and ship and mermaid and silver light flowing from her lips, sweet and sorrowful, lifting and lilting across the dark sky as they did in that deep black hall all those years ago. She looks past the glimmer of brazier and moonlight as she sings and glances at the lord of white and grey with tears turning his eyes to stars in the torchlight.

“ _Oh, the hero comes_

_I can hear the drums_

_And our horses run to the kingdom come_

_Through the pale moonlight_

_Our hearts ignite to the call_

_Oh, claim your prize_

_To the crown of stars_.”

The high table is a row of tears in the torchlight. She looks from Ned to the king and finds him weeping silently into his black beard. His queen of red-and-gold stares straight ahead, her eyes bright and unblinking; her brother a shadow of white and wide gaze beside her. Littlefinger looks at her intently, his silver eyes flickering wild as waves. Sansa clutches Jeyne’s hand and looks out with trembling lip and brimming gaze whilst Arya ducks her head and stares at her plate to hide her tears. True enough, even Septa Mordane watches with cheeks wet from her well of sorrow. Nell looks at them, each and every, king and queen, lord and lady, child and councillor.

 _A thousand eyes of silver and shadow_. She sweeps her fingers across the strings and her voice rises to dance amongst the stars. _Webs of perfume and words of storm_. They stare at her transfixed and enchanted, each and every, king and queen, lord and lady, child and councillor. _A web of secrets limned red-gold by flames beneath that threaten to destroy it – black and red and gold… bones and blood and breath_. Her heart soars with her sound and it lifts and lilts and swells and surges like salt water, sweeping the riverside and curling amongst its silk and canvas and fluttering flags and trestles of oak and ash. _A siren’s song spins it all to one – the flaming web is sunk by salt water and spun again_. She meets gleaming eyes above soft robes of lavender silk and her lips lift in a smile to match her song. _Spun again as iron and ice, as salt and snow – a storm the south has never seen before, believe it_ …

ლ

The king calls her and Nell goes to him with harp in hand. Ned has gone along with half the court; the riverside is dipped in shadow now as the torches flicker and the moon slips behind a cloud. The high table is almost empty save for the king and the prince and his betrothed. Joffrey is king of kindness where he sits beside Sansa, their heads bent close in conversation, her cheeks a velvet blush of laughter. Nell glides past them without a glance; she thinks of Littlefinger’s quip about wolf wedding rose in place of lion and feels the truth of it cold and sharp in her heart. _Black and red and gold_ …

She dips a low curtsey to the king and sinks into the chair he sweeps a hand toward. Up close, he is even more a giant. He fills his throne with muscle run to fat, but his shoulders are broad, his chest and arms that of a warrior. _Black-haired and full of fire_. He is decked in black-and-gold and his eyes are misty above the tangle of coal beard running from his cheeks to his chest. He smiles at her.

“I’d heard whispers of the lady of the salt winds,” he says, his voice warm and quiet. “Of her silver songs and words of seaspray.”

“Songstress or siren, they cannot decide,” replies Nell, low and cool. “I hope my playing was silver to royal ears, Your Grace.”

He stares at her. “Your song was star and sea and smoke of memory.” He frowns and tugs at his beard. “It took me back to a black hall where waves crashed loud on the rocks below… a place I’d long forgotten.” His frown deepens. “Ned keeps you hidden away as a woman stows favourite charms in chests and crates below keep and castle.” She sees an ember glowing in his stormy blue eyes now. “He’s right to, I suppose, in a place like this where beauty is sniffed out as quick as a boar on a hunt.”

“You think me beautiful?” asks Nell, making her voice velvet. She feels nerves squeeze her heart but sets her shoulders. _Sink the web and spin a storm the south has never seen before_ … “Truly, Your Grace?”

The king’s eyes are warm in the starlight. “You have the dark beauty of the ironlands,” he says, taking in her face with one swift glance. “Skin made smooth by its salt winds, eyes the colour of the seas that foam around its spits of rock… a body as shapely and supple as the currents curling at its shores.” He swallows and shifts in his throne. “Ned does well to keep you hidden.”

“What would happen if he didn’t?” asks Nell, the velvet purr soft in her throat and her eyes leap to see the king bite at the inside of his cheek.

“You’d be chased like a deer by half a hundred hounds,” he says, his voice thick. “But mayhap you’d run your way into a stag who’d see them off with teeth and antler.”

“Oh?” says Nell, her eyes darkening with her tone. “And after my stag had seen away the hounds, what would he do to keep me?”

The king runs his tongue over his lower lip; Nell sees the light of lust cloud his eyes as heavy as wine. His fingers drum against the arms of his chair.

“He’d keep you well, my lady, of that I’m sure,” he breathes. “Dress you in silk and lace and linen, cover your pretty white throat in gold and silver and gemstones… you’d be queen of the hunt with a crown of wildflowers in your hair.” His eyes sweep her face. “Would you like that, sweeting?”

Nell wants to cringe away from the king’s lusty face and run free from this riverside of fireflame and shadow. _Forgive me, Ned, but I must needs fan these flames_. She leans forward instead and smiles at the king, her hand rising to smooth her hair back behind her ear. His eyes follow every flutter of her fingers.

“Would you give me gifts, Robert?” she asks, her voice honey and cinnamon and sweetgrass. She sees the lust explode in his eyes to hear his name on her tongue. “Anything I wanted?”

He nods fervently and smiles at her. “I can think of a certain gift I’d drape around that pretty neck.” He shudders. “Pearl and ivory and salt.”

She feels bile in her throat but leans closer.

“What would be your gift to me?” Her voice darkens now. “A black-haired bastard full of fire?” _Black and red and gold, the flames rise high around me_. “Or a babe gold of hair with eyes of evergreen?”

Confusion clouds the king’s gaze now and he frowns at her.

“He’d be tall and fierce as a stag, sweeting,” he says slowly. “With coal for hair and eyes the same blue as the seas that crash against Storm’s End.” He taps his chest with a great fist. “Like every Baratheon is like to be.”

Nell’s eyes pass from the king to his golden-haired son now. “ _Every_ Baratheon, my king?” Her voice is as soft and silver as her song.

The king’s eyes light on the prince of red-and-gold and the confusion deepens in his gaze, his frown grows heavier and he fights through wine and weariness to understand. The lust has gone from his eyes as quick as a torch extinguished in cold water.

_Black and red and gold, do you see it yet, Robert? Do you see it yet, my king?_

“Does the lion leap the stag?” asks Nell, her every word a dare searing from her throat. “Does a coat of gold overtake a coat of coal?” She rises up from her seat and dips a curtsey. “How can it, my king, when the seed is strong?”

“Hmm,” says the king, his eyes locked on the prince of red-and-gold, dim awareness fighting through the wine-heavy depths of stormy blue. “Hmm.”

ლ

Nell sees Sansa back to her bedchamber, the girl’s cheeks red as her hair from whispering the prince’s words in Nell’s ear during the walk from riverside to castle. Nell listens well and patiently and her smiles are full and true to see the sparkle in those blue Tully eyes. _So sweet, so pure_. She presses a kiss to Sansa’s brow and bids her goodnight. _I said I would sink any heat that harmed your girls, my lady, and I meant it, that promise swells as strong as the sea in my heart, believe it_ …

A shadow slips by her as she turns up the twist of the tower’s stair. Roughspun robes and mud-caked boots that move soundless as silk on the stone steps; Nell doesn’t need to breathe the bittersweet scent to know who moves as a ghost below her. _Sweet and sharp all at once_. The scent lingers still, thick and full as death, winding a thread of sweat and dust and lavender toward the solar. She follows it without word or backward glance and shuts the oaken door behind her.

Ned sits in the glow of a dozen candles, his face pale and drawn as the fireflame flickers on the steel of the dagger he turns slowly in his hands. The yellow tome is spread before him, left open on the page Nell marked at dusk, and Ned is frowning hard at it. _Black and red and gold, do you see it yet, Ned? Do you?_ She fights the urge to spill thought and sound like water and watches him instead, watches his brow knit and twist, his fingers spin blade, his mouth firm below his beard in concentration. She takes a step toward him and he lifts his face and stares hard at her as if he can see past her bones and blood and breath. _He can, for true, he always can_.

“Stag and lion,” she says on a breath. “As different as iron and gold.”

_Do you see it now, Ned? Do you?_

He looks at her, his flat grey eyes reflecting flames and embers. _He sees it, gods be good, he sees it_. He sets the dagger down upon the yellow pages of the book; a muscle flickers beneath his beard.

“Lion plots to kill stag,” he says simply, his voice low and soft. “With blade or belladonna, it makes no matter.” He tilts his head and holds out his hand; she steps to him and takes it. He pulls her down to level her face with his and searches her eyes. “What does the wolf do now?”

She strokes his beard and looks deep at him, her face as tense as his in the fire-glow. “The lion prowls and the stag stamps.” Her voice is a whisper so swift and soft he strains to hear it. “The spider spins its web.” She leans closer still, her breath gentle on his lips. “And the wolf waits.”

Ned gazes at her with heavy-lidded eyes and takes her lips with his. “And the sea?” he whispers, drawing back from her mouth. “What does the salt sea do now?”

She smiles and strokes his hair and thinks of the king’s eyes drowning in wine and weary confusion. _Black and red and gold_. She leans her forehead onto his and stares at the storm grey depths.

“The sea has set a storm,” murmurs Nell. “A storm that will sweep away lion and drown spider’s web in salt and spray.” She kisses him soft and slow. “A storm that will raise the winds to match the wolf’s howl.” She hears the moan low in his throat and feels his teeth dent her lip. “A storm the south has never seen before, my love, believe it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Verse lifted from Elizaveta's _Hero_ (acoustic version rather than studio).  
>  2\. Things are picking up - expect change from canon, good or bad, who can say...


	17. The Seed is Strong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

The storm comes early. It rises to the solar in a ruckus of sound: loud voices, heavy footsteps, clattering and cursing. It erupts through the door and slams it shut in its wake. Ned ducks beneath the carved archway sheltering the desk at which Nell sits and his face is dark with fury. She blinks up at him and he glares at her, his head pounding fit to burst. _Lion, stag, spider, it makes no matter_. He feels his heart run ragged against his ribs. _Let salt water bathe them and leave them for the carrion birds to find_.

“We are flying this place,” he seethes, his voice thick and angry. “Make yourself ready – you and the girls. I mean to catch ship and leave this city’s stink behind.” He strides over to the window and wrenches up a handful of the flowering maple, twists the red-green leaves and throws them to drop to the middle bailey below. “I am sick unto death of its politics and plots.”

Ned feels her small hands on his shoulders after a moment, her fingers kneading gently as a cat. He sighs and some of the tension goes from him; he tips back his head toward her touch and the sunlight catches bare collar where his badge of office is usually pinned. Her hands run up and down his neck, along his shoulders, down the broad slope of his back. Pain laces behind his eyes and he remembers his anger in an instant.

“Kings plot to murder babes in the womb.” He strikes the window-frame with his fist now. “The same king who slew Rhaegar at the Trident balks at the shadow of his unborn nephew and seeks an _honourable_ way to end it.” He looks at the blood peppering his knuckles. “Cat was right – I knew the man and not the king.”

“Have you forgotten why she sent you here in the first place?” says Nell, a barb of temper flaring in her tone. “Have you forgotten what secrets you’ve chased and shadows you’ve thrown flame at?” Her hands drop from his shoulders. “Have you forgotten it all for the sake of a few heated words said in the council chamber?”

“I should have chosen godswood over gold hand, Nell,” he says coldly. “I should have stayed with my broken boy and let the beasts lurk unchallenged in the shadows.” He turns to face her and his eyes are wild with fury and despair. “They move from shadows to daylight, sit the small council, whisper honeyed words into the king’s ears.” He holds her shoulders with a grip hard and hurting. “Flatterers and fools – let lion eat stag and spider spin them both into webs of storm.”

Her shoulders ache beneath his iron grip but she tips her face and looks at him calmly, her hands twisting into the grey silk of his doublet. “You are not yourself, my lord,” she says with fury in her eyes. “Hear yourself, will you? Throwing words around as carelessly as a wine-soaked boy. Are you two-and-ten fighting over toys?”

Ned glares down at her, pain and heat and rage blurring with the helplessness he feels toward it all. “What does it matter?” He releases her shoulders and steps back, breathing hard through his nose. “What does any of it matter?”

Nell’s voice is dark fury. “This place is a rat’s nest, a viper’s pit, a den of lions and wild dogs and savage things – it sharpens its claws on redstone walls and spills blood to match the Blackwater’s flow.” She looks up into his eyes and sees the truth of what she is saying reflected in those stormy grey depths. “It is death and dust and danger – because good men stand back and do _nothing_. Will you do nothing, Ned?” She grips his chin and stares at him with fire and fury. “Will the wolf run scared back to the wood?”

“The wolf grows tired of waiting,” says Ned, wrenching free of her grip. “The lions circle the stag scenting blood and guts already. The spider spins its web and traps half a hundred flies and frees half a hundred more.” He looks down at her with black lord’s eyes and sees the hurt bleed with anger on her face. “The sea-storm swells low and weak.”

Nell is frozen beneath those cold lord’s eyes; she stares at him as blankly as the day he fished her from the salt sea. The soft words and sighs and shadows of promises shuddered in naked bed take flame and burn up in an instant. But fury shapes her lips and sets her jaw and he rears back as she rises to her tiptoes and stabs at his chest with her finger.

“The seed is strong,” she hisses, venom thick as ice in her tone. “The Stark is not.”

He gives a roar at that and makes to grab her shoulders but she slips from him like salt water and disappears down the tower’s stone stair.

ლ

Noon finds Nell in the godswood, half-hidden amongst the lower branches of the great heart tree of oak. _Hearth and home and heart tree… and yet he looked at me with those cold lord’s eyes_. In that moment she felt a hundred things: hate and grief and defeat and love and anger washing over her like cold water. It sliced at her heart and filled her lungs, burned salt in her eyes and rattled sea-smooth stones into her throat.

She crouches in the branches of oak and wants to rant and curse the day he plucked her from the Drowned God’s grip – but she can’t. _Not now, not ever_. She watches the guards in the grey-and-white of Winterfell slip through elm and alder and black cottonwood in search of her. _Lord of white and grey, lord of starlit eyes and silver oath_. Jory and Alyn circle the heart tree, trip over its sprawling roots and search the thickets of dragon’s breath and smokeberry vines at its base. _Lord of all, lord of everything, lord of my heart_. They leave the heart tree and cut their way back to keep and castle; the rustle of leaves and snapping of twigs a solemn song in their wake. _Lord of bone and ash soon-to-be if he doesn’t regain his senses and strike for the beast’s belly_. She feels tears hot and heavy in her eyes but refuses to let them fall.

“If only men remembered to lift their eyes from the dirt every now and then,” says a soft voice below the leaves. “They would see that an entire world lives above them as thick and true as the air that moves around and the earth that rests below.”

“Your talk of assassin’s blade and poisoner’s cup has caused more hurt and storm than you can imagine, Lord Varys,” says Nell, slipping down from the branches of oak and standing before his cloud of perfume and powder. “My lord gave in his golden pin and seeks ship and shore of home.”

Varys gives a little grimace and twists his hands together in the powdered sleeves of lavender silk. “Worse still, my lady of the salt winds,” he says softly. “His lady wife has taken Tyrion Lannister captive and marches him with all haste home to Winterfell.” His eyes glitter in the sunlight filtering through the leaves. “His brother Jaime swaps cloak of white for one of red-and-gold and bays for blood to match it.”

“Ned,” says Nell very softly, and she realises with a twist in her heart that she’s never called him so to anyone but he. _Lord of bone and ash soon-to-be_ … “Lord Stark, is he in danger?”

The master of whisperers spreads his hands and gives a half-shrug. “No danger, my lady, no danger at all… _if_ he stays behind the walls of his tower.” He meets her eyes and the gleam has slipped from them; they shine true with haste. “My little birds cooed to me of a silver song and siren’s spell slipping like honey into greedy ears… King Robert wakes as a sleeping giant and calls for Malleon’s book… but rumour says he is slow to read and slower still to understand.” He twists his hands. “Meanwhile, my lord Littlefinger seeks to draw our good Hand through cobbles and smoky market square to _help_ him find the brothel Jon Arryn sought.” Varys gives a little shudder. “Who’s to say what could happen in the black of night with gold-cloaks busy at cook-shops and street-fights? Why, Ser Jaime’s calls could be sated with the blood of northmen then, couldn’t they?”

 _Black and red and gold, the flames rise high around me_. For a moment, Nell is overcome by the same weariness that set Ned’s eyes to cold black stones. _Politics and plots, flatterers and fools_. Her head is full and heavy as a water-skin. She wants nothing more than to flee the shadows of the godswood and ride hard for home, to cut through redstone walls and wash the stink of King’s Landing from her skin and soul. _A rat’s nest, a viper’s pit, a den of lions and wild dogs and savage things_ … She thinks of the rats that live in the city’s belly, the lords that dance around its teeth, and then the faces of those that now live at its heart cloud her mind as heavy as her weariness: Arya’s sleek dark head smiling at her from where she stands one-legged in the bailey, Sansa lost in a sea of silk and turning to seek comfort and help, Jeyne Poole of the quiet eyes and soft smiles, Septa Mordane stern-faced and surly but a good woman true, Jory Cassel and Alyn and Harwin and Tomard and all the streams of white-grey cloaks and silver pins. _And Ned_. She feels the sea surge strong in her heart now. _And my sweet Ned_.

“I am only a handmaid of the salt winds,” says Nell softly. “Sworn to serve House Stark with the grace and courage the gods see fit to give me.” Her eyes flash in the sunlight. “I am called songstress and siren and seawitch and whore by men who seek to harm me and mine.” She looks to Varys now, a tremble in her lip. “But I am as cold and deep and true as the salt sea and fierce as ice and iron, believe it.”

“Why do you think I called to you that day in the rookery, my lady?” says Varys, raising his brow. “Why do you think I slipped you words of silk and seed in cloistered pathway and candlelit solar?” He draws closer, his scent of lavender swirling. “Because you are a spider of sorts, my lady of the salt winds.” His eyes shine. “You spin webs of storm and song, and they catch half a hundred more flies than webs of silk ever could…” He dips his head and stares at her, bright and dancing. “But if web of silk and web of storm unite, they could tie down a lion.”

“Tell me,” whispers Nell, sunlight and secrets swirling thick as scent about them in the godswood. “Tell me what we must do.”

ლ

It is dusk when Nell finds her way back to the Tower of the Hand. The sky is purple and pink and full of clouds, setting soft light on the hills as the sun sinks and handfuls of stars begin to glow. She walks with slow and measured steps, her skirts flowing like heavy water over the flagstones as she passes through the heavy oaken doors. The tower is quiet; most of the guards are at table in the small hall and she makes quick work of slipping past the pair playing dice to the side of the doors to the audience chamber.

The chamber is even quieter; her footsteps seem noisy as they cross the Myrish rugs carpeting the room, the soft sound of slipper on stone echoes off the red and yellow tapestries strung across the walls. The chamber is bathed in golden light, the tinted window the shape and colour of a great coin punching its view out over the Red Keep and city beyond. The high-backed chair of the Hand is set before it, dark and empty. Ned stands behind it, his back to the chamber, his eyes set on the city spilling like smoke before him.

“Where have you been?” he asks, his voice low and indifferent. “I’ve had half my guards out in the keep and the city looking for you.”

“I was in the godswood,” replies Nell, her voice as cool as his. “Singing to the old gods, spinning in their grove.” She watches his shoulders grow hard at the mention of that distant memory. “There was a time when you would have been there beside me feeling the rush of the gods through your skin.”

“That time is dead and gone,” says Ned and he turns to face her. “We are not in Winterfell anymore.”

“No, we are not,” agrees Nell, stepping around the Hand’s chair, her eyes and hair aglow in the golden light. “We are in a nest of vipers and vultures because of the choice you made amongst the red-gold leaves of home.” _Gold hand or godswood, broken boy or beasts in the shadows_ … “You’ve unmasked half the faceless terrors in the darkness and discovered half a hundred more, each deadlier than the last.” She meets his eyes and sees the fire dead and cold in them. “You’ve discovered, too, that steel and shield offer no protection here in the south. Secrets – they are the coin of the court.” Her chin raises, and she stares at him with all the fury of a queen. “Now you keep the greatest secret of them all in your pocket… tell me, my lord, what will you do?” She pulls the laces of her cloak free. “Will you sit and wait on it with honour and virtue as your weapons? Will you spill it like seeds for greedy birds to peck and pluck?” The dark cloak falls in a puddle of wool about her feet. “Tell me, what will you do, my lord?”

“What do you want from me?”

Nell looks at him and sees a pale broken thing shadowed by the golden window at his back, the dying sunlight bleeding lines in his brow, chasing darkness across his grey eyes. She steps to him, a storm of dark silk and lace, and puts her hand to his throat; her fingers squeeze a gentle threat and her stare is blue fire on his.

“I want you to _fight_ , Eddard Stark,” she hisses. “I want you to stride as a wolf among lions and snatch their kill from between their teeth. I want you to remember who you are.”

He stares down at her. “Who am I here, Elenore?” His voice is dull. “I am nothing in this game of thrones – a poor player and a poorer man in this court of blood and fire.” His eyes drop defeated to his feet.

“Coward.” The word rushes from her throat in a growl. She tightens her fingers on his neck and pushes him back against the window, the golden light flaring her eyes to flame. “Is _that_ who you are, Eddard Stark? A craven and a coward? A vulture who picks at the leftovers of a lion’s feast?” Her nails prick his skin, hot and sharp, and he winces. “I’ve heard songs of you as wolf and warrior… mayhap I’ll sing a new one telling of your cold blood and craven heart.”

Slowly, his eyes rise to meet with hers, dull and dark, but there is an ember glowing faintly in the grey depths. She seizes it.

“You bring shame to your house, to your name, to that silver wolf running across your breast.” She jabs his doublet with her finger and her lips curl in a snarl. “You are no Stark of Winterfell.”

It happens in a flash of strength, silent, full of fury. Her head cracks back against stone as Ned throws her against the wall bordering the window. Her mouth parts in a whimper of pain but he blocks it roughly with his hand and shakes her silent. His body is a vice, hard and unforgiving, trapping her between solid chest and wall, his arm pushing her shoulders flat, his thigh hard between her legs. They breathe fast through their noses, their jaws and cheeks tight with hate and heat as they glare at each other. He watches with disgust and desire and fury and hunger the blood beat against the pale skin of her perfect throat and it is as though it is calling him, goading him to hurt and to heal. His arm presses up from her shoulders and leans hard against her neck now, fighting to still that taunting beating of blood and heat, and she glares down at him and breathes raggedly through those rosy lips. _Damn her, damn them all_. He wants to kiss her lips and bite them bloody all at once.

“Ofttimes I think of what life would have been if Balon Greyjoy had given you to his sea god that day,” says Ned, his voice rough and glacial. “I would have won my king’s war and returned to Winterfell much the same as when I left it. I would have been a good husband, loyal and true, and raised my children well. I would have done my duty, served my house, protected my blood.” His forearm is iron against her throat now and her fingers clutch at it, leaving marks from her nails on his skin, her legs scrabbling around his thigh, her eyes wide and wild. “Duty and honour and family… those were my gods.” His hand moves from her hip to her face, catching her silky black hair in his fingers and pulling her head back sharply. He sees light explode in her eyes at his rough touch, feels her wetness seep warm on his thigh. “But that day I stole you from the salt sea… everything changed, didn’t it? I changed, forever.” He twists her hair around his fingers and pulls harder; her white throat stretches in a smooth curve before him, but her eyes warn him off marking it with his teeth. _Not yet, not yet_. “You were a wild west wind, Elenore Northwood. You were a storm that swept through me and took root alongside the weirwood tree… you were a goddess of the sea in black-and-gold.” His eyes flare on hers. “You sailed my heart like a ship and tore down the flags of duty and honour and family.”

She writhes like liquid in his iron grip, her face afloat with fury and desire, her cunt burning hot and wet against him. “What were you before me?” Her voice is a low breathy hiss beneath the weight of his arm. “You were a husk, a shell, a _shadow_. You moved through life like a ghost. You wore honour as armour, held duty as sword, family as shield. All three dragged you down the day you found me. They made you captive to the current, put you at the mercy of the sea.” Her hand fights its way up to his face and wrenches at his jaw. “Your king would’ve walked past the water without so much as a glance. Half a thousand soldiers sat idle and watched Balon Greyjoy drag me from castle to tide-line.” Her nails bite through his beard; her teeth are a snarl. “And yet the great Eddard Stark swooped through sand and surf to pluck me from a madman’s grip.” Her voice is low and dark as a storm. “Why? _Why_?”

“Because I loved you!” Ned’s voice rips from his throat like thunder. “Because I wanted you despite honour and duty and family!” His eyes are terrifying in the golden light, his black beard framing a jaw taut with fury; but her nipples press hard against his chest and her cunt glows on his thigh as she grips at his arm and whines. “Your song, your stare, your shoulders bare in the torchlight – they were a siren’s spell calling me to my own dishonour, my own destruction.” His shoulders shake violently, his grip tightens at her throat and hair. “I had to take you away, Nell, I _had_ to.”

She has become still and calm in his arms; her eyes look into his with a languid liquid intensity. Her thumb strokes where her nails have just bitten hard and sharp.

“What were you in that moment, Eddard Stark?” she asks, her voice warm and smoky. “That night you watched me sing by candlelight, that day you saw me half-drowned by seawater… you were not a Hand, then, or a warrior, or a lord… what were you in that moment, Eddard Stark?”

Fire leaps in his eyes now.

“A man,” whispers Ned. “A wolf… a _Stark_.”

“Yes,” hisses Nell, leaning hard against his arm to get to his lips. “ _Yes_ , my love.” She takes his mouth savagely; he pulls back, and she wipes away the blood blooming on his lip with her thumb. “You were a man moved by desire, a wolf by hunger, a Stark by honour.” She hooks her legs around his waist and lurches away from the wall, setting them to stagger and swoop and clatter into the high-backed chair of the Hand. She sits astride him, her skirts lapping his legs. “Man, wolf, Stark – you can be all three again, my love.” She rolls her hips, feels him hard and throbbing between her legs, and bites her lip to see the muscle flicker in his jaw. “You can make the lions scatter like sheep and live in terror of the wolf who stalks them.”

The groan that rips up from Ned’s throat is hardly human. He takes her hard, without ceremony or gentle care, thrusting up inside her with a force and ferocity that makes her eyes roll back and her lips part in a breathy cry. She moves on him as hard as he rocks beneath her, her hips rolling and eddying, her hands clutching at the chair and his shoulders, her head tipped back and hair a wild black storm dancing in the golden light of dusk. He watches her with mad fascination, with wolf-like hunger, his fingers tangling in her hair and pulling her head further back. _Man, wolf, Stark_ , he thinks. _Bones and blood and breath_. His eyes glimmer on her smooth white throat and he surges forward to nip it swift and sharp with his teeth.

She rolls her head toward him then, her eyes half-closed and heavy with the pleasure bursting in her belly. She is the sea upon him: rocking, rolling, swaying, surging, pulling him in with the strength of a thousand white-tipped waves. She brings his hand to her face now and bites his palm, tipping her head back with a low moan as he sweeps down to grip her throat with it, his fingers squeezing the gentle threat she loves so much. Her cunt is red-hot and rippling around his cock and he feels the coming storm rumbling like thunder in his lungs.

“Lion and wolf and stag,” she moans, her words garbled and low and strange. “Drinking from the same grey stream.” She holds hard to his shoulders now and quickens her rhythm, her face levelling close with his, her lips trembling, her eyes bleeding into his. “Wary eyes and quick claws.” She throws back her head and he feels her begin to shiver, feels her thighs begin to clench and dance against him. “But the wolf will strike first – _yes_ , gods, yes!” She comes as furiously as a storm-swept sea batters black rock and high cliffs. “Yes, the wolf will strike first.”

“But the king,” gasps Ned, releasing her throat to grip at her hips as he grinds himself deeper, the white-hot thread of climax beginning to tighten. “He is surrounded by a sea of gold-and-red.” He feels her nails mark his skin and his hips buck and jump and still and shudder and she pulls him in and takes it all. He explodes inside her, his fingers clutching with bone-breaking force into her hips as she rolls the last of his storm from him.

“We’ll smash that sea with ships of ice and iron, my lord,” she murmurs, sweeping the dark hair back from his brow. “Fight lion with wolf and white-tipped waves.” She catches his lips with her teeth, with her tongue, pulls him into her mouth and looks at him with iron and ice and fire in her eyes. “They’ll sink, Ned – they will sink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. _But if web of silk and web of storm unite, they could tie down a lion_ based on an Ethiopian proverb: **when spiders unite they can tie down a lion**.  
>  2\. The next chapter will pick up this very same night: that ill-fated journey to Chataya's brothel...


	18. Daggers in the Dark

The Red Keep is dark as blood in the rain that lashes down. Braziers and torches gutter and hiss out in the middle bailey as night sets black and thick as the rain. The Tower of the Hand is sleepy and near silent; Nell slips from her room and moves as a shadow down the stone steps, her boots soundless, her hair hidden by the dark wool of her hood. The heavy oaken doors rattle as she lifts a hand to unlatch them.

“Nell, where are you going?” comes a sleep-heavy voice.

Her hand freezes on the doorlatch and she turns carefully to face the tower’s stair. There, on the first twist, stands Arya: sleep-slow eyes and mussed dark hair. She has her night shift on and Needle in her hand. _So sweet, so innocent_. Nell feels her heart flood full of love as the rain without. _I would sink any heat that hurt her, for true_. She takes a step from the door and draws closer to Arya, slips a hand onto the sleek dark head.

“I have an errand to run,” says Nell, soft and sweet as her smile. “You should be in your bed, little one.”

“But it’s _raining_ ,” says Arya, frowning. “And it’s night.”

“Your Syrio is teaching you to see well and true, I’m glad to hear,” says Nell and she chuckles to see Arya’s face lift in a grin. “You are right, Arya Stark, it _is_ raining and it _is_ night… but some things cannot wait till the morrow.”

“What things?” asks Arya, rubbing at her eyes. “What things, Nell?”

_Things that will save you from flames and the lords that fan them, little one_. She gazes at Arya and smiles that soft little smile. _Things that will save you from grief and hurt and pain… things that will save us all_ …

“Things of import, Arya Stark,” says Nell softly. “One day I’ll tell you all about them – when your lord father is to bed and can’t catch us whispering of piskies and faeries and sea monsters in the night.” She bends to press a kiss to the child’s brow. “I promise.”

Arya looks up at her in the shadows of the tower and nods her head, fierce and true. “All right then, Nellie,” she says and she steps into Nell’s embrace. “ _Long we’ve tossed on the rolling main_ ,” comes her muffled sing-song voice where she buries her face in Nell’s belly, “ _now we’re safe ashore, Jack_ …”

“ _Don’t forget yer old shipmate_ ,” joins Nell, chuckling now and Arya pulls back and giggles too, “ _faldee, raldee, raldee, rye-eye-doe_!”

Nell watches the sleek dark head disappear back up to bed; she sets her face and shudders in her cloak. Then she lifts her hand to unlatch the door and slips out into the night of rain and storm.

ლ

A cobweb shivers as rain beats against the scarlet glass. Nell watches it sway and dip as raindrops explode like flung gravel in the lamplight. Without, cobbles are drenched and men driven below their roofs. Here, in this red-warm room that smells of moans and mother’s milk, the cobweb dances between pane and glass. _A web of silk and a web of storm_. She runs her fingers softly over the spider’s strands and frowns at the rain. It runs in rivers down the window. _A storm the south has never seen before_.

Nell leaves the girl rocking her babe on the crimson-slung bed and closes the door to the red-warm room. Ned told her of the promises she was to give to the girl who birthed another of the king’s bastards; Nell looked down on the black-haired babe and mother of red curls and gave them as he would, solemn and true. _No more than four-and-ten and swept already into a sea of royal salt and storm_. She slips down to the brothel’s common room. It is empty save for a scattering of whores, loose-limbed and clad in wisps of silk, dandling on the laps of a few men in candlelit corners. Littlefinger lounges near the back, chuckling and kissing the hand of a woman with skin of ink in a gown of feathers. He ducks beneath the doorway after Nell; rain rattles against the lanterns of cherry glass swinging on lead chains.

The flickering crimson light catches on the silver pin fastening Littlefinger’s cloak and Nell stares hard at it. _A mockingbird flitting alive as rain in some silver light_. The dream floods her eyes like the rain washing down the cobbles. _While my lord of white and grey lay soaked and shivering on the cobbles beneath its wings_. She feels the shiver meant for Ned pass through her – but she feels no fear, only a cold fury burning quietly in her belly. _The stage is set, the storm is spun_ … They mount up and turn from the place of cherry glass and moaning stone.

The streets are deserted as they thread their way across cobblestones and smoky market squares. The sky is black and starless, the rain warm as blood where it falls and twists down cloak and gown. Littlefinger keeps up a steady stream of chatter, laughing at his own wit, but Nell sees the tension he tries to hide writ plain in his quick silver eyes; the way his hand trembles on the rein, the snap of his head at every whisper and footfall in the alleys and byways they pass. She sees it plain as day and the cold fury begins to warm, spreading hot fingers to burn in her chest.

“My lady once told me that you professed to love her as pure and true as sunshine loves a flower,” says Nell conversationally. “She said you swore it again and again – even when you were beaten blue by Brandon Stark’s blade.”

Littlefinger rides alongside her in silence for a moment, the rain soaking through his hood and falling in unchecked drops onto his cheeks. Nell watches it run in a rivulet dark as blood, dripping from his pointed beard down onto the silver mockingbird pinning his cloak. His face is firm and pale in the muted lamplight, his eyes darting like silver fish to meet with hers.

“Lady Catelyn was a rose of red in a place of thorn and trout,” says Littlefinger, his cool tone betraying the light in his eyes. “She married the wrong man is all – she belonged to the soft hills of the southern lands, not the ice of the north.” He smiles, strained and small. “Her father knew that… but he sold his lovely daughter as all fathers do.”

“Did you give Lysa Tully the same promises you made her sister?” asks Nell casually, staring straight ahead as the horses move steadily through the rain. “Did you whisper words of love and marriage in riverside shadow?” Nell meets his eyes and gives a smile of her own. “Did you give her the gifts you wanted to lavish on her sister, Lord Baelish?” The words fall from her thick and quick as the raindrops around them. “A crown of wildflowers, a handful of wild oats… a cup of woodwitch’s brew at the turn of every moon?” _Flames for hair and sapphires for eyes_. “Tell me, my lord, did you see her as Cat’s own self, too?”

Littlefinger’s eyes flash at that even as the cool little smile remains on his lips. “The handmaid of salt winds and soft words grows bold.”

“I’ve watched you southron lords at play in this rat’s nest of keep and castle,” says Nell, her voice a whiplash in the rain-swept air. “You dance the steps and sing the words, but you hoard secrets and dangle them over throats like daggers in the dark.” She gives a low chuckle. “You scheme and you sidle and you sidestep like a capering monkey on a chain held by a lion’s paw. You think a storm of sound will act as smoke and blind the beasts you seek to hunt and hurt.” Her eyes flash with fire. “But you are wrong, Lord Baelish.”

He stares at her with mastered eyes and a smaller smile on his lips. “Perhaps,” he says, his voice rising high before it settles. “I’ll tell you true, Lady Northwood, I see now why Cat ordered her handmaid to remain here whilst she herself fled for home.” His eyes flash cold and cruel. “She knew how hard her loyal bitch would bark and bite to protect her kits.”

“Believe it,” says Nell, the fire rough in her throat. “I would sink any heat that hurt them – no matter how fierce the flames.” She meets his eyes. “And I saw the flames dancing the first day I stepped foot in this city of smoke and blood. I saw them as you bent to kiss my lady’s hand. I saw them when you watched one kit bandy and balance in the bailey and when you stared at the other with hunger growling in your belly.” Her lips lift in a snarl. “But they are _mine_ to watch over, Lord Baelish. Mine to protect with shield of duty and sword of honour.”

“ _Honour_ ,” says Littlefinger with a hum and a huff. “Northmen and their beloved honour.” Rain falls into his unblinking eyes. “Lord Stark wears his honour like a suit of armour, my lady. He thinks it keeps him safe – but all it does is weigh him down and make it hard for him to move.”

_Would that you knew_. Nell feels savage joy colour her cheeks. _Would that you knew that my lord of white and grey cast off his armour of honour nine years past_. Her heart surges. _Would that you knew that it rusts now at the bottom of the salt sea_. But she smiles, demure and pretty as any soft lady of the south. _Would that you knew we both move light and easy as a web of silk whilst you flounder with wings caught and pinned in a storm you cannot see_ …

“You hate Eddard Stark as Robert hated Rhaegar,” says Nell soft and pretty as her smile. “But you will not harm him through his daughter, I promise you.” _Flames for hair and sapphires for eyes_. “Cat’s own self, true she is… and I watch her as closely as I’ve watched her mother these nine years past.” Fire burns her stare. “I watch them _all_ and I remember who I am: a handmaid of the salt winds, sworn to serve House Stark with the grace and courage the gods see fit to give me.”

“You are ironborn and iron-hard, Lady Northwood,” says Littlefinger, his voice weaker now. “But you move in a city that is harder than iron and twice as deadly. A handmaid and her harp against the shadows of the world… words of silver song are pretty, true enough, but they have as little power as a scattering of raindrops on desert dunes.”

“You forget one thing, Lord Baelish,” says Nell, cool and calm. “Winter is coming – and it will wash the desert clean.”

ლ

They ride in silence another fifty threads of cobblestone streets. They are crossing a square when sounds rise up sudden as a storm; the clop of horseshoes and creak of armour clamouring loud and high to the starless sky. From the darkness figures emerge. Littlefinger spins his horse. Nell sees crimson plate and ringmail, helms of gold shaped as lions, blades glittering like diamonds in the soaking air. The rain runs in a thick black river down the street; the row of crimson plate and golden helm stands stout in its furious flow. There are twenty of them, sodden boots and rain-streaked faces, blocking the way with sword and lance. A man in gold sits a blood bay stallion; Nell sees gilded armour and a crimson cloak. _He swaps cloak of white for one of red-and-gold and bays for blood to match it_. She hears her heartbeat swarm her ears.

“What is the meaning of this?” calls Littlefinger, walking his horse forward. “I escort a handmaid of the Hand’s household from an errand in the city – we are expected back at the castle.”

“A handmaid?” cuts the voice of the golden-haired knight. “Where is Lord Stark?”

“Safe in his tower,” says Nell.

The blood bay stallion pushes through the line of crimson plate and golden helm and rides toward Nell. Littlefinger wheels his horse to slither off down a sidestreet but is hemmed in by horseflesh and hammering rain and hard stares of rain-soaked soldiers. He looks about helpless, real panic shining in those cold eyes. _The stage is set_. Nell sits her horse and breathes deep. _Let the storm rage in fury and fire_.

“Why does Lord Stark send a handmaid out to tend to his affairs?” asks the golden-haired knight, drawing his horse to a halt alongside Nell’s. “Is he too craven to answer for his lady wife’s crimes?”

“Anything Lady Catelyn has done is carried out beneath her lord husband’s command and colours,” says Nell, a flicker of fear building in her heart. “As for answering to crime and justice, mayhap you should turn your attention to your own family, Ser Jaime.” She masters her fear and meets his evergreen eyes. “You lions leave a thread of smoke and blood wherever you care to tread.”

“Whilst you spin your own,” he spits, the rain darkening his hair and running in torrents down his cheeks. “I’ve heard whispers of you. Handmaid or whore, they can’t quite decide.” He raises his hand, the lamplight catching on the golden gauntlet and turning his fist to flame. “If Lord Stark won’t come out himself, mayhap you can carry a message home to him, my lady.”

“Lannister, this is madness!” cries Littlefinger, twisting as helpless as a netted fish in his saddle. “Let us pass.”

“Would a knight of white and gold strike a woman, Ser Jaime?” asks Nell, her eyes wide and stormy blue, her hand steady on the reins. “Would he, for true?”

“A woman, no,” he says, his face twisted against the rain, his eyes wildfire blazing above wet cheeks. “A whore? A seawitch? A siren who stirs up storm and trouble and silver song? _Yes_.”

Nell sits her horse and meets his eyes, her heart bursting in her chest. _I will sink any heat that hurts them_. The blood rushes like a tempest in her ears. _No matter how fierce the flames_. She sets her face and feels a half-smile quirk her lips.

“Then strike me hard and strike me true, Ser Jaime Lannister,” she murmurs, calm as the sea on a still day. “I’ll say only this to you: _winter is coming_.”

His fist, that golden flare of plate and fire, smashes into her face in a fury so intent that he misses the shadows slipping from sidestreet and alleyway. Nell feels a small rush of clarity before everything goes black. _He hears the threat and knows it for what it is_. Her head rocks back and she falls from her saddle as men in grey-and-white swarm the square. _He feels it build like smoke within him and tries in vain to fight it… this wind, this tempest, this rush of sound and fury_ … She lands in the black river of rainwater and shivers in the silver light as shouts of northmen echo in the night. _This storm the south has never seen before_.

ლ

Nell dreams of heavy water and cracked stone, of crumbling walls, dipping bridges, of thin soil and scarce trees. She sees faces, hard and stony as the land they call home, eyes the blue-grey of water, the green-black of kelp. From half a hundred faces, a single one looms great and tall and terrible. His eyes are the hard black of the sea at night, his hair grey and white and silver, framing a face as harsh as winter, dark as storm. He is thin and gaunt, but his grip is iron and his hand is a golden blaze of flame; it smokes and hisses in her hair as he pulls her along behind him with the strength of a lion. Crowns of driftwood and iron and gold bob the currents that snatch at her feet as she stumbles and falls to her knees in his wake. She cries out for mercy, but the wind snatches the words from her lips and with a slash of his flaming hand to her cheek he sends her tumbling into the cold water slicing at her hips, pulling at her legs, dissolving her gown and leaving her clothed in salt winds and seaspray. The white-tipped waves beckon, the Drowned God calls – a voice as low and deep and crushing as the sea. _Handmaid_ , it roars, _whore_.

There is a hand gripping hard at her hair again and her face is plunged beneath the water. She chokes and splutters and fights the burning hand holding her head under the waves. _Whore_ , the voice sounds again, and she is sure it will be the last word she hears amidst the roar of the sea in her ears, she is sure she will die now, her lungs blue and fit to burst, the world a rush of black kelp and sea and storm before her eyes, _whore_. And then as sudden as it gripped her, the hand of flaming gold releases her hair. Something pulls her up from the cold cutting depths of the sea and another voice sounds now, soft as a summer storm in her ear, a voice she would know anywhere. The world is a blur of white and grey and starlit eyes as she is lifted light as air to her feet. _My love_ , says the soft voice, _my love, look at me_. She fights toward it, kicks through water and smoke and crowns of gold and daggers in the dark. _You are safe now, Nell, I promise_ …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Lines lifted from a British naval song of the Napoleonic era: _Don’t Forget Your Old Shipmate_.  
>  2\. **Lord Stark wears his honour like a suit of armour** … lifted (and adapted) from _A Game of Thrones_ Chapter 48: Eddard XIII.


	19. Ships of Ice and Iron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW**.

Sunlight slips in through the latticed windows; shadows chase across the walls and throw shapes to spiral and dance. They bob and twist like boats on a current. _Ships of ice and iron swept up by a sea of gold_. Ned watches them with absent eyes and a heavy heart. He has sat here all the night and half the day; his shoulders ache and his neck hurts beneath the weight of mail and leather and cloak. They are each as sodden as the other and his mud-spattered boots have left wet footprints on the Myrish rugs covering the flagstones. But when he looks down at the bed the discomfort bandies from him like smoke from a fire. _Harlot and whore and heathen and witch_. He remembers the words and wants to weep. _You have but one name to me_ …

“Beloved,” he whispers, and he smooths the dark hair back from Nell’s brow.

Her face is still and soft in sleep, her long lashes swept down in a storm of black to her cheeks, the pillow lost beneath her tresses in a cloud of ink. Livid marks of red ring her neck and bruises purple her cheek. He fought hard through storm of sword and clash of cries to get to her as that fist of gold and flame crashed down like a dagger in the dark; he ran and stumbled to his knees where she lay half-dead in that river of rainwater in the smoky square alive with shouts and steel. The raindrops mixed with tears on his cheeks as he lifted her in his arms and rocked her to his chest. _Lifted from rain-washed street as the salt sea nine years past_. Around him, men of grey-and-white and black-and-gold moved as one against crimson plate and golden helms whilst he stood oblivious to it all clutching Nell as desperately as she clutched him on that day of salt and seaspray.

“The girls have sat with you half the day,” says Ned softly, weaving his fingers through hers and smoothing the pearl of her nails with his thumb. “Sansa sang you the song of the seven and Arya swore to take Needle out and find the man who struck you.” He gives a reluctant smile. “She tried to tell you a tale of faeries in the glen but Septa Mordane drowned her out with a prayer to the Mother.” He bites his lip and can almost hear her laugh at that; her face remains still and quiet. “Alyn and Harwin shouted and raved over who would get to sit guard over your room last night. Jory had to step in and bang their heads together like warring brothers.” He leans down and presses a gentle kiss to her brow. “They are all here because of you, my love. Jaime Lannister was out for blood last night – and he would’ve got it had it not been for you.”

He gazes down at Nell and feels her swirl in his heart like smoke. He thinks of it all now: every smile and stare, every sigh and shudder, every soft word and gentle touch. He finds her silver chain and runs the wolf’s head through his fingers. _Ned and Nell_. He smooths it with his thumb. _Nell and Ned_. He thinks of her in light of dawn, in blaze of day, in blush of flame come night. He thinks of her as she was nine years past, wild and wind-whipped as sea and black rock. He thinks of her eyes rising with her song, sweeping down his throat like sweet wine. _Hearth and home and heart tree – she is all three to me_. His heart breaks in his chest. He has felt shame and guilt hot as fire in his lungs every day since he plucked her from the Drowned God’s grip – but love and all its light, too. _What is honour compared with smoke and sound and silver light?_ He closes his eyes. _What is duty in place of love?_ He opens them and sighs and shudders. He grips her hand tight and his voice falls low and rich from his throat: the thick dark smoke of the north.

“ _Lay me down gently, lay me down low_

_I fear I am broken and won’t mend, I know_

_One thing I ask when the stars light the skies_

_Who now will sing me lullabies_

_Oh, who now will sing me lullabies_.”

Ned falls forward then, his brow resting on hers, his body a shelter and a storm bleeding its warmth around her sleeping bones; his hand brings her fingers up to lay against his lips, and his tears fall cold and quick on her cheeks.

“Seven bloody hells,” comes a warm voice from the doorway. “The day I hear Ned Stark sing again is the day Rhaegar rises born-anew from the bloody Trident.”

ლ

The world is water; black and thick it makes her weightless. She drifts amongst crowns of driftwood and iron and gold. Lazy currents clutch at her hips, run the length of her legs, whisper across the soles of her feet. She is floating in a cloud of salt and storm, her fingers clutching at heavy water, her toes pointed as they glide and cut through listless waves. There are faces down here in the darkness. Soft and pale as moonlight, they swim before her: a girl of sleek dark hair, a girl with flames for hair and sapphires for eyes, a woman in blue velvet with silver trout dancing up her arms, three boys red of hair in ragged cloaks and wolfhead pins, a black-haired boy with eyes bursting like purple flowers in the dark. Half a hundred more pass her by, lithe and quiet. She can _smell_ them down here in the bowels of the earth: lavender and perfume and powder, sweat and dust and air. She can _hear_ them: words of silk and words of storm carrying along the currents.

“ _How long, Ned_?”

“ _Nine years that feel forever, Robert_.”

“ _She saved us, Ned. She saved us all_.”

The words bob and twist in the darkness, flickering shapes dancing like boats on the current. She follows them, kicking up swift and smooth from the seabed, her fingers gliding through heavy water, her toes pointed as they cut through listless waves. She swims through scent and sound and storm; the darkness gives way to murky light that calls her in a voice deep and low as the sea. The world is a blur of white and grey and starlit eyes as she breaks through the surface and takes a breath that bursts her lungs and sends white-hot pain and light to tear open her eyes…

“Ned?” cries Nell, her hands clutching on silk sheets in place of heavy water, her toes pointed beneath linen instead of listless waves. “ _Ned_?”

In an instant he is there, his grim face opening to relief and love and light where it hangs above her own. His hand lays on her brow, smoothing back the dark hair, and his teeth are white as he laughs with joy. _Such a beautiful sound_. She looks at him and feels heavy and slow. _Such a rare and beautiful sound_. Her hand rises to cup his cheek, her fingers clutching at the wild black beard and she watches him laughing and she laughs too – though it splits her head and makes her wince. She wants to pull him down and drink him in but the sounds swim out of the water and bleed and echo in this room of red sunlight. They are not alone. She looks past white teeth flashing in joy and sees another face looming by the bed. _Black-haired and full of fire_. Her eyes meet his in a sea of stormy blue.

“The lady of the salt winds,” says Robert. “It was your silver song that slipped the scales from my eyes and singed the wool in my ears.” He looks at her and at Ned. “The stage is set, Lady Northwood… will you sing again?”

“Yes,” says Nell, the word a flash of flame in her throat. “Yes, my king.”

ლ

Moon chases sun from sky and with it comes a handful of low storm clouds. It is quiet in the throne room save for the rain drumming against roof and rafter. Half a thousand men sit at trestle tables of oak and ash buried beneath platters of suckling pig and heels of fresh-baked bread. Wine and ale flows thick and free; but men push aside their cups and stare with solemn eyes to the high table before the Iron Throne. _They see the stage_. Shrill of pipe and beat of drum rings against the rafters now – but no raucous shouts nor boisterous laughter rise to mix with the merry music. _They feel the storm_. Even the dogs are quiet, scampering beneath the benches in search of spilt meat and mead without a sound.

The Iron Throne looms as a spectre of twisted sword and blood and smoke behind the high table. The king sits centre and proud before it, his eyes sharp as steel, his cup empty of wine and full of watered ale. He is a warrior again; the great hall can see it. The way he sits his chair, the way his shoulders fill the seat, the steady gaze he sweeps around the hall. His queen of red-and-gold sees it too; fear and confusion is writ plain on her face. No shadow of brother in white cloak and golden armour stands behind her tonight – neither do quick silver eyes above pointed beard leap the hall in frenzied light. _She feels the storm but is too late to fight it_. She turns this way and that, her cherry-red gown trembling like heavy water, her evergreen eyes luminous as wildfire in the torchlight. _A web of storm and a web of silk – the strands tie down the lion quiet and quick as death_. Ned sits to the right of his king, his face as grim as it was nine years past in that smoky sea-swept hall half a world away; but his shoulders are set and he bows to his duty.

Nell sits where they bid her a little way in front of the high table of king and queen. A sconce of half a dozen candles throws up sparks and glittering flame behind her, limning her in honey light and setting her smooth black hair to embers. She wears a gown of black-and-gold velvet, cut high to hide the livid red marks on her white throat, and powder sits in soft sheen over the bruises purpling her cheek. Her fingers tremble as they pluck the lyre in her lap. It rises to twist and scamper with the merry music of pipe and drum. She sings a pretty song or two, soft words of heroes and stars and ruby rivers and silver light flowing from her lips, sweet and sorrowful, drifting to the rafters of the great hall as they did that deep black keep all those years ago. She looks past the glimmer of candlelight as she sings and glances at her lord of white and grey. No tears turn his eyes to stars tonight. _The stage is set, the storm is spun_ … He gives the smallest dip of his head and she begins her silver song.

“ _We have a secret, just we three,_

_The lion and I and the sweet cherry-tree;_

_The tree told the lion, and the lion told me,_

_And nobody knows it but just we three_.”

The hall is silent save for her song and the merry mix of lyre, pipe and drum. She feels the eyes of every man fall on her like pinpricks on her skin. _A thousand eyes of silver and shadow_. She sweeps her fingers across the strings and her voice rises to dance amongst the rafters. _Web of silk and web of storm_. They stare at her transfixed and enchanted, each and every, lord and lady, child and councillor, king and hand – but the queen is pale as milk in the torchlight, her hands twisted tight into her skirts of cherry silk. _She hears the threat and knows it for what it is_. Her heart soars with her song and it lifts and lilts and swells and surges like salt water, sweeping the hall and curling amongst its candleflame and flagstones and trestles of oak and ash. _She feels it build like smoke within her and tries in vain to fight it… this wind, this tempest, this rush of sound and fury_ … She meets the evergreen eyes of golden-haired queen and her lips lift in a smile as bittersweet as her song. _This silk web of secrets spun to storm_. The queen of red-and-gold slips from lioness to cub and looks for her mate of golden gauntlets sharp as claws. _This storm the south has never seen before_. Her voice drops low and soft; half a thousand men strain forward to hear it.

“ _Now if the tree and the lion don’t peep,_

_I’ll try my best the secret to keep;_

_Though I know when the little birds fly about,_

_Then the whole secret will be out_.”

That grim face of white and grey dips again and men in grey-and-white and gold-and-black come forward from the shadows. They mount the stage of king and queen. Golden-haired in a gown of cherry-red silk, the queen stares out wordlessly from her high-backed chair and lets out a scream. It is sound and fury, it is disbelief and disgust, it is a lover’s wail, it is a sister’s lament, it is a storm the south has never seen before. _Black and red and gold_. Nell hems out the final note on her silvery strings and feels relief bleed with pity in her heart as the merry music of pipe and drum sounds shrill as holy bells. _Do you see it yet, Cersei? Do you see it yet, my queen?_

ლ

Ned watches from his bed as Nell washes the powder from her face. She hums where she stands before the window; the moon mixes with the golden glass and sets her skin to flame. She dips her hand in the basin of water and runs it over her face till bruises bleed through the honey blush of her cheek. Water drips and trickles and makes a sound like bells to join with the soft low melody of her humming. Candleflame catches and turns the waterdrops to diamonds, throws their shadows across tapestries of red and yellow. They bob and twist like boats on a current. _Ships of ice and iron swept up by a sea of gold_. Ned closes his eyes and lets loose a weary sigh. _A sea smashed by wolf and white-tipped waves_ …

“Why did she scream, Nell?” asks Ned, his voice low and slow in his throat. “I kept my lord’s face as best I could… but that sound.” He blinks open his eyes and stares at her in the golden light of the window. “It cut the heart right out of me.”

Nell is very still before the window for a moment. Her humming stops and the sound of water dripping and trickling to the basin swirls the room like smoke. Then she turns to him, her eyes stormy-blue above the purple of her cheek, the honey light limning her white chemise and turning it to gold. She walks to him where he leans against his pillows and sits beside him. Her hand rises to smooth the wild black beard, her fingers a whisper along his jaw.

“Flesh of my flesh,” she whispers, finding his down-turned lips with her thumb. “Blood of my blood.” She leans close and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Bone of my bone.” She takes his mouth softly, her lips a sweet sorrowful song on his. He smiles at her, a half-broken little smile, and pulls her onto his lap.

“Hearth and home and heart tree,” he murmurs, his eyes soft as a summer storm. He draws her close, holds her in the circle of his arms as he buries his face in her neck and breathes deep her scent: that heady perfume of scented oil, flowers and sweetness that is Nell’s and Nell’s alone. “Always.”

She rocks him in her arms and sways him soft and gentle as the sea. Soon enough, his storm comes; she feels tears cold as silver bite her neck. “ _Lay me down gently, lay me down low_ ,” she murmurs, her song as soft as her hands on his head, “ _I fear I am broken and won’t mend, I know_ …” She lifts his face gently from her neck and tips his chin to drink deep his eyes. He seeks her lips and she tastes the salt of tears in his kiss. “I heard the rich dark smoke of the north and swam through salt water and fire to get to it, my love.”

He shudders in her arms and clutches her a little tighter, his eyes full and round on hers, storm grey lit by sparks of love and relief and desperation.

“Seeing you so soft and still in sleep,” he whispers, breathing hard through his nose. “It made me think of a time and place half a world away.” He bites his lip and runs his fingers through the black silk of her hair. “A bed of blood and black rose petals swirling like smoke in the air… an oath of storm and violet.” He rests his forehead to hers and looks down at the bed, his brow heavy. “An oath that haunts my dreams.”

Nell smooths the tight skin beneath his eyes and smiles her soft little smile as he looks into her soul. “I know those dreams, Eddard Stark,” she says gently. “I have felt them all these years. Dreams of smoke and blood and roses.” She strokes his hair. “I have seen eyes of violet storm bursting in the darkness.” She leans back from his brow and holds his face in her hands, gazing down at him. “But your secrets are your own, my love, and that is how they will stay for as long as they must.” Honey moonlight dances across the bruises on her cheek and he loves her with all he has in this moment. “A Stark of Winterfell always keeps his word.”

Ned rests his hands on her thighs, his fingers whispering up beneath the silk chemise. Her skin is smooth and warm against the roughness of his palms. He gives a shuddering breath and pushes the silk gently upward.

“Do you remember our first night together?” he asks on a murmur.

Nell looks down at him and he sees her eyes are damp. Her breasts move a little faster beneath the silk chemise and her breath comes quicker, harder, deeper. He knows exactly what she is feeling: the want, the hunger, the passion, the need. He feels his own heart fill and drop, plummeting down, down, down –

“I remember your hands,” she breathes, threading her fingers through his and lifting his hand to her lips. “These warrior’s hands.” She kisses his knuckles. “I remember that they made me feel clean and whole and true again.” Her lips feather across his palm. “They smoothed away the sting of seaspray and storm that had come before.” She sinks her teeth very gently into the heel of his hand. “They turned me from iron to ice, from salt to snow… they made me yours that night and always, Eddard Stark.”

The moan rises low and soft from his throat. She lifts her arms and he slips the silk from her body. Her lips glide across his fingers before she pulls his hand down her throat; she shudders and gives a whimper to feel her nipples turn to ice against his palm. They arch and stiffen desperate for his mouth whilst the ache for him surges strong and hot between her legs. He feels her wet and wanting against him and runs his hand between the valley of her breasts, his fingers catching on her silver wolf’s head. He pulls very gently on the chain of silver and she lowers herself, her face levelling with his.

“Kiss me,” he murmurs against her lips. “Kiss me as you did all those years ago, my love.”

She meets his eyes and holds them. Half-closed and heavy with desire, he feels what they felt nine years past: that rushing, churning, uncertain joy building as a storm of shame and surrender. Then she tilts her head and kisses him, opening his mouth with hers. He holds her ribs beneath his palms, sliding down the silk of her skin and sweeping across her belly to the swell of her hips. She moans into his mouth and he turns her, lithe and quiet as a wolf, her body a song beneath his. He dips his head and rolls her nipple with his tongue and she arches her back, a keen lifting soft from her throat. He forges a trail from her heart to her throat, leaving kisses to burn like ice on her skin as he drinks deep her mouth and rests his brow to hers. She spreads her thighs wide beneath the weight of him and he slides into her heat; she is a goddess in this moment as her warmth pulls him in and her body opens to his touch.

“That night you sang,” breathes Ned, his teeth shuddering at the silky feel of her cunt around him, warm and wet and good and _his_. “It was the first night in years that I forgot about smoke and blood and roses… just for the time of a silver song.” His brow twists in a frown against hers. “You tore my heart out that night, Nell Northwood – you’ve kept it ever since.”

“Safe,” whispers Nell, her breath a moan against his lips as he moves slow and deep and heavy inside her. “I’ve kept it safe with my own.”

He smiles at that, a half-broken little smile, and rubs his nose gently against hers. He kisses every mark of red and purple left by hand of flame and gold; she tilts back her head and whimpers, luxuriating in his gentle nursing of her with his lips. He sets her throat afire with his kisses, her belly aflame with hot sparks of pleasure, her heart aglow with a love forged of saltspray and storm and sealed by silver and song. The flames reach her eyes and he sees it; he lifts her arms and holds them above her head. Her wrists are tiny in the span of his fingers, pressed deep into the pillows, her body a silver song arched against his. They move harder now: hips and tongue and teeth and endless search for soft heat and pleasure. She is liquid in his arms, she is smoke and salt water and surging waves – fire and ice and ebb and flow. They push and pull at each other, riding this swell like boats clinging to a storm-tossed current. _Ships of ice and iron_. Ned feels her teeth on his neck. _Smashing through a sea of gold_.

“Iron turns to ice,” breathes Nell, lifting her hips and taking him deeper, her fingers twisting desperately in the circle of his hands.

“Salt turns to snow,” says Ned, releasing her wrists and smoothing the dark hair away from her face. He draws back, slides into her slower this time; her cunt is a pulse of fire around his cock and he groans like a dying man. She clutches his shoulders and his hair, drawing him to her mouth, and her eyes are huge in the dark. “You are safe now, Nell, I promise.” He kisses the panic from her face and she takes his sadness and spins it to silver song on her sigh. “Safe… and mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Verse taken from Kate Rusby’s hauntingly beautiful _Who Will Sing Me Lullabies_. Ned’s timbre would be more in tune to John Gillen’s lovely cover of the song – if a little deeper and gruffer.  
>  2\. Verses lifted from _The Secret_ by Anonymous: obviously adapted (e.g. robin/lion etc.) to fit with the scene of Cersei’s arrest.


	20. Bones and Blood and Breath

Nell walks the cloistered pathways of the Red Keep, her slippered feet soundless, her silk skirts sweeping along the red flagstones. The sun is halfway risen from behind soft pink hills to the east and the shady walkways are warm and quiet. Clipped hedges of yew and evergreen peek over the waist-height walls, studded still with bursts of pink petals and orange blossoms. But here and there, drifts of purple and yellow and white bloom amongst the leaves: dahlias, crocuses, cyclamen and snowdrops. _The first flowers of autumn_. Nell runs her hand over their bobbing heads and the scent fills her nose. _Sweet and sharp all at once_. She lifts her eyes from the flowers and turns to where the master of whisperers sits plump and powdered in his crook of cushions.

“My lady of the salt winds,” says Varys, his voice soft as his lavender robes. “The rising sun sets the bruise purpling your cheek the most wonderful shade of plum.” He smiles at her. “Truly, it becomes you.”

Nell gives a gentle chuckle at that as she steps into his stone alcove and sits on the cushions beside him. His eyes meet hers, dark and bright all at once, and he hums a little beneath his breath.

“The wolf and his ward,” he says, soft and sweet as his smile. “Who would have thought a love gloved in secrets and shadows could save so many?” He taps his fingers together in the silk nest of his sleeves. “They say Lord Stark fought as a man possessed in that market square of rain and riot.” He raises a brow. “They say he slashed a man in two and took the arm off another before opening his throat.” He twists his hands into his sleeves, settles them on his lap. “They say he moved as lithe and deadly as a wolf, that he left rivers of blood to mix with those of rainwater, that men of red-and-gold shrank from him.” His eyes leap on hers. “He was sound and fury, my lady of the salt winds, he was storm and fire… all for _you_.”

“You speak as if you were there, Lord Varys,” says Nell, her tone dry and quiet even as her heart thuds against her ribs. “You weave your whispers into a song of wolf and warrior with a skill to rival that of Orland of Oldtown.”

The master of whisperers chuckles then, and it is a sound like silk on stone. He claps his hands together gently and his giggles fill the cloistered pathway. “Not half so well as you, my lady,” he says, settling his hands in his lap again. “Web of silk and web of storm… it flowed like silver song from your tongue.” He bows his head. “You plucked the city from the hands of chaos who sought to grasp it that night of rain and riot.”

“Web of silk and web of storm,” says Nell quietly. “Woven together as lion moved with mockingbird.” She understands it all in an instant. “How else was Jaime Lannister to know Lord Stark would be making for Chataya’s brothel?”

“How else indeed,” says Varys, smiling. “Littlefinger was _very_ fond of chaos, and humiliation at a lover’s duel kept him warm on many a cold night.” He gives a little shudder. “He nursed that ancient hate every waking hour… make no mistake, my lady, he would have cried for our good Hand’s head the moment he was tossed aside in his game of chaos and control.”

“And you, Lord Varys?” asks Nell, tilting her head and looking deep at those eyes, dark and bright all at once. “What game have you?”

“The Red Keep shelters two sorts of people, my lady,” says the master of whisperers, smile as soft and thick as his perfume swirling about them. “Those who are loyal to the realm – and those who are loyal to themselves.” He rises from his crook of cushions and smooths his robes of lavender silk. “Our good Hand administers to the realm with grace and truth, his handmaid spins silver songs to save it… and _I_ serve the realm – that puts us on the same side of the river, for now.” He inclines his head and slides on soundless feet from the stone alcove. “Now run and whisper, my lady of the salt winds, and keep us all where the realm needs us: here and breathing on this redstone riverbank.”

ლ

Nell spends half the day on her knees in the godswood, giving thanks to Ned’s gods for keeping him safe. She looks at the heart tree of oak, at its scratched eyes and slash of mouth, at the sap running from its face like blood. _Southern blood_. She runs her hands over the jagged bark and circles a knot of smokeberry vines with her fingers. _Not one jot of it northern_. Gods of iron and salt and sea, gods of forest and leaf and snow, gods of silver words and shadows – she has known them all. _Some tried to kill me, some took me in as foundling and saw me grow with grace and courage_. She sinks onto her haunches and gazes up at the canopy of elm and alder and black cottonwood, watches as the sunlight slips full and thick through the leaves. _And with the grace and courage they gave me, I repay their faith_. She gets to her feet and hums a slow sweet little tune.

Her eyes upturned to the sunlit canopy, she spins slowly, feels the rush of the gods through her skin, and the warmth of another as she steps back into hard flesh and soft silk. She does not look over her shoulder; arms find their way around her waist, crossing over her belly and flattening hard hands to her hips. Wild beard glances the skin of her throat, a kiss soon follows.

“I knew I would find you here,” the voice is dark and deep, a slow rumble from his chest that echoes into her back. “Singing to the old gods, spinning in their grove.”

Her hands have lowered to cover his own; their fingers thread together. They stand and sway in the sunlight, russet-green leaves rustling at their feet, the wind lifting through their hair like the breath of the gods. For a moment, they are home again, watching moonlight play silver and white on red-gold leaves as they drift and twist across the glossy black pool of Winterfell’s godswood. She feels his smile against her neck.

“You are my heart, Nell Northwood,” breathes Ned, lost in her scent of wild flowers and winter. “You’re my bones and blood and breath.”

Nell feels him shudder against her and turns in his arms. They stand as dancers, his hands circling her waist, her fingers at his shoulders and hair. She brings his face down toward her own and feels his frown flicker where his brow rests against hers. She strokes the dark hair back behind his ears, traces the shells of them with her fingertips. He gives a smile at that and rubs his nose gently against her own.

“It was fated, wasn’t it?” says Nell, her voice softer than the breath of the gods in this holy grove. “The gods made us as one and severed us by land and sea… but the current brought you back to me.” She rises onto her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his mouth, her arms winding around his neck as his hands close on her waist and make her bones creak. “You marked me with your silver and I marked you with my song.” She draws back slightly and looks deep into his eyes; blue-grey drinking in summer storm. “And here we are, Ned Stark – here we are.”

“Here we are, my love,” murmurs Ned, running his hand the length of her hair, his fingers whispering against her throat. “Raiders burn fields and farmsteads in the west, shadows move in the Mountains of the Moon… for all we know dragons rise again in the east.” His brow is creased but his smile is true, his eyes soft and round with love. “The king roars for wine and whores and warhammer, lords call for justice, traitors cry for mercy, lions prowl keep and cage… and we are at the centre of the whole bloody mess.”

“Step by step, we will make sense of this mess of blood and fire, my love,” says Nell, smiling her soft little smile. “Lion, stag, spider, silver wings... all of it, sweet Ned.”

Ned looks full at her and leans his forehead against her own. “Do you promise, Nell?” he asks, and his voice is warm and vulnerable as his words in naked bed.

Nell kisses him softly in the shadow and sunlight of the godswood.

“I promise, Ned.”

―――ლ―――

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. _The Red Keep shelters two sorts of people_... lifted (and adapted) from _A Game of Thrones Chapter_ 30: Eddard VII.  
>  2\. Thank you to all that have read, commented and given kudos to this story. It started off as an idle spark of thought that wondered if Ned could be more than his canon character of honour incarnate... this was the result! I am planning a sequel to pick up where we leave it here - lions in cages, mockingbirds presumed dead, stag regaining his royal strength, spider spinning webs, dragons stirring in the east... and at the centre of it all the wolf and his ward. Methinks our little lady of the salt winds still has many flames to watch for... for now, **thank you again** , C. x


End file.
